Beginner's Guide to EA Arcoscephale

[GameExtremist]

Ahh, but another advantage to a F9 bless is that (unless I'm mistaken) that the windriders count as magical, always a good thing IMHO.

But yeah I'd never thought of a W9 bless before and the quickness bonus associated with it. But then which is the nation as a whole going to benefit from more? F9 or W9?

I think having a F9 pretender when it comes to rituals and spells is going to be more a benefit on dryland then a W9 pretender.

[Sombre]

Let's face it, W9 bless is almost always worth it. It's that damn good.

[bigfuzzy]

Thanks so much for this guide.. brilliant.. been looking for something like this since there are so many factors to think about and I'm relatively new to the game..
Great work and thanks for all the comments afterwards, they add to the big picture!

[Gandalf Parker]

An icarid leader with icarid troops can be handy to attack the backline. Set on the flank with guard commander, then have the commander hold, hold, attack archers or attack rearmost. If you have chariots on the other flank and have them rush-attack then you can draw most of the foot troops away and make the flank attack to rearmost more effective.

[Sandman]

SelfishGene said:
EA Arco is one of my favorite themes, but i really think minimizing Philosophers is the wrong way to go. Philosophers are one of the most potent human units in the game; there is no other way to get 10 research points so cheap, so quickly early on. Making 8 or 10 philosophers early in the game w/ 3 sloth 3 magic will give you a very large leg up on research that will be hard to match.

This is my thinking as well. If you crank out philosophers in the first few turns, you'll soon build up a huge wad of spare cash that you can use to start building your second fort as early as turn 4. Ideally, you'll hire a mage mercenary to build your second lab and use your prophet to build your second temple, completely side-stepping EVER building any non-cap commanders in your capital.

[Theodotus]

Lady of Fortune is not available to EA Arco -- only to MA and LA.

[DrPraetorious]

If you're really having trouble making EA Arco viable:

Take an awake Prince of Death, domstr 9, with D4, 3 Order, 3 Sloth, 3 Fortune, 1 Death, 1 Magic. You can go 2 Growth with neither fortune nor death, if you wish instead - the death *will* kill off some of your philosophers. This works for practically any nation, but is particularly well suited to Arco.

Set your tax rate to 200% on the first turn and patrol, while sending your PoD blind into an adjacent territory, with your scout sneaking in behind. Recruit a philosopher and some peltasts. You're going to be recruiting nothing but peltasts for a while; peltasts have javelins and shields and therefore they can expand in the early era.

In this first province you grab, build a fortress starting on turn 2. Have your philosophers start heading up construction - as soon as you have Const 2, make a pendant of luck and some armor and things for your PoD.

You'll be recruiting philosophers and building fortresses all over the place until you can't afford any more. Build temples and labs as well, recruit prietesses and things.

Advanced considerations:
* A wyrm or a dragon might be better than a PoD (it's a pity you don't get a Deva), b/c they're alive which means that your priestesses can heal them.
- Example 1 - Awake Blue Dragon, Water 9, Domstr 9, Order 3, Sloth 3, Misfortune 3, Drain 2. It takes you a few turns to start recruiting pegasi, but the combination of a strong bless, a SC god *and* an edge in research (net bonus of +2 on the phillies) can be devastating. If your capital doesn't have high resource neighbors, though, you're screwed. Compromise builds like this are harder to use but I generally favor them myself.
- Example 2- Awake Wyrm, no magic, Domstr 10, Order 3, Sloth 3, Fortune 1, Magic 1. This probably isn't as good as the PoD, but is less of a risk b/c the Wyrm is a little more powerful pre-equipment, and because you can heal him with your priestesses.
* A dormant pretender saves you a *lot* of points, but as EA Arco with sloth you have trouble expanding early; almost certainly isn't worth it.

[hunt11]

I've only played the demo with Arcoscephale but one thing that does works well are your assassins, or in other words your Oreliads, gear them up with good spells and equipment for an assassin and they will succeed most of the time.

[chrispedersen]

.... is no (major) bless at all.

It took me quite a *long* time to get *the* strategy for Arcosephale. And, that being said, I don't believe it to be competitive in MP - but I do believe its what the designers intended.

Lets look at the clues:

Arco has one of the best stealthy mages in the game, with the Oreliad.

It has an AWESOME unit in the Wind Rider - highly mobile, great defense, lances - but ridiculously expensive, and capitol only.

It has icarid - a moderate flying unit.

It has excellent commanders - sceptics and philosophers(cap only) and one of the best mages in the game (especially if you are playing unpatched) - the mystic. And finally, engineers and mage engineers.

And finally, we have the canonical history of where the inspiration for arco was drawn - the greek city states.

And all the rest of its units, if you'll pardon the expression - are crap.

What do all of these point to?

Arco is not supposed to win large scale pitched battles. Point of fact - arco can not mass comabat effective troops, should be trying to *avoid* pitched battles - and should be trying to force its enemies to do the same.

How?

Again - the units give clues to the tactics. In point of fact, arco should be one of the *raiding* nations.

Icarids and Wind Riders. The icarids can be built at any fort, and have a smaller map move - and are far more of a harrying force.

The wind riders - pound for pound are a great unit - and can pack a huge punch with just 7-10 riders.

And if raiding is the left jab - dominion kill is the right hook.

Arcosephale raids in order to prevent PD or patrolling from discovering its skeptics.

Aka.. after arco raids a place - move the sceptics in. The sceptics don't have to execute an order in order to kill dominion - they just have to exist *in* a province.

So raiding should be one continous string of apparrently random movement- followed by a trail of sceptics.

Now, you are probably saying, this is easily counterable - and to some extent - you are right.

But a lot of nations - Lanka, Niefle etc are built around the idea of fighting a military confrontation. If you do that as arco you will lose... so the idea is to prevent youropponents from credibly developing that strategy.

What are other shreads of evidence to support this?
Well, first, arco, of all the nations in the game, is the only nation I recall of the top of my head - that has discounted labs.
Arco - more than almost any other nation except LA MAN needs forts and labs to crank out - not military - but commanders.
Discounted labs helps arco to crank out sceptics.

So, if you follow this strategy of no massed armies - and just constant raiding - what do you do about enemy forts? And lo and behold - arco has a ready answer for that.

Engineers - with a *huge* siege bonus. On top of that, wind riders - which are flying and hence count double for sieging.

The third bit of evidence: Suppose that you have been successful in raidng the bejeesus out of your opponent - and your opponent has responded the way you want - ie., by dispersing troops, and commanders to counter your raiding.

So he has a *lot* of units, and a lot of commanders tied down to garrison duty..... where they are *easily* seduced or assassinated by your orelieads.

Fourthly. You have the *best* healer in the game - and you heal within your dominion, spontaneously. What does this point to?
Death Dominion - with healers.

So, I've given you a few of the clues- so this is how I believe Arco sephale is meant to be played:

A: Pretender - Awake. You need the dominion spread, caused by your pretender. Magic Paths.. up to you. Personally, I think death is mandatory, and a rainbow is useful.

As for Scales... the only thing I feel strongly about is Death 3.
Personally, I feel that Turmoil hurts your opponents more than it hurts you, and it benefits your philsophers.

Magic +1-+3 is useful as it will benefit your researchers and make easier your job of fort defense via communion.

*IF* you take turmoil, you will probably need to max out luck and production, and keep an even temp scale, in order to remain financially viable.

B: Fort construction. As fast as you can. Except for capitol, you don't care about unit production, only commanders - so resources are not that important. When possible, build near your enemies (or future enemies). You really don't want skeptics traversing *your* territory.
Swamps are fastest to build.

C: Taxation: Raise em. National troops are good only for patrolling.

D: Province defense: yeah - a point or two to prevent scouts from walking over your teritories is fine. If you took luck +3, you don't need to worry about random events trouncing your territories - and if the ENEMY is raiding your territories rejoice for he is playing *your* game. Save PD for your forts.

You don't care about lands - what you want to engage in is a series of small battles where you can attrit your enemy. Any place you *do* care about strongly needs a fort ... ASAP.

Think about it - the greek city states were just that - bunches of city states with dry dusty wilderness between.

E. So, I've told you how important forts are.. So fort defense is critical. And you have two layers to do so.

First, you should confine your raiding so that a bunch of your raiders can collapse back on your forts, to defend.

Secondly: Communions. Every single Mystic is communion bait.
Plan on building Crystal Matrixes/ Slave Matrixes so your Oreo's can get in on the action.

A few last thoughts, not because there isn't more to say, but because I'm tired of typing....

Funnily, played in this fashion, Pan is your natural ally. Both of you have a strong interest in projecting turmoil. Both of you are raiding nations.

Arco is not a brute force nation - it is a thinking mans nation.

A few things to watch out for: Armageddon.
A comment on Formoria: Charm, or communioned charm.
CBM: Confusion.
Oreos: did you know lightning bolts made great tools for assassination? Add in an aim, an orb of aiming, or natures eyes which they can self buff. And lightning bolts *cant* be blocked by shields.

Now, if I had only figured this out *BEFORE* I started this MP game...

[Endoperez]

Sounds like an interesting strategy.