Agartha, Pale ones - a study in darkness (CBM)
There are some guides and threads written about early Agartha already, and all honour to the authors, but they seem to dwell a bit much on Agarthas percieved "crappiness". Various posts refer to them as "tragic" and "I love them thematically but..." and other less flattering sentences. (There are also many good ideas and creative discussions, from which I will steal shamelessly)
I thought it was time someone stood up to their defence!
First of all we need to understand the nature of the nation. Agartha as I see them is NOT one of those nations where one single "uber" unit type fights the same way in every fight. Agartha is a steam tank, a big rumbling engine of death far greater than the sum of it´s parts. This is true for many nations, of course, but for agartha it is true from turn 1. Now before we start the driving lessons, lets take a look at the blueprints.
Overall highlights:
- Agarthas units are all cold blooded and tires fast in cold scales. This is something we must be aware of at all times.
- All Agarthas units are one eyed and have low precision, attack and defence. meaning they initially don´t do much of the damage through melee.
- no regular archers
- Agarthans are strong and can take a lot of beating, as well as hitting hard once they hit something.
- Lots of sacreds recruitable everywhere.
- All units have 100% darkvision.
- Units are generally very cheap, both regulars and sacreds are very massable.
- super powerful earth mages, up to earth 5 w/o boosters
- Whole nation fully amphibious, you will be as competitive under the waves as on land.
- Seige bonus on *all* units, you´ll usually take forts in one or two turns.
The driver.
I have in mind a very specific race, requireing a very specific man behind the wheel. My pretender is a dormant F4 E4 S4 D4 forge lord. And our scales will be order 3, production 2, heat 3, misfortune 2, magic 1 and a dominion of 6. There is room for tweaking of course, but not much. Hold your protests and cries for earth and nature blesses for now, I will explain my choices later. This guy is going to be the heart of our machinery, the high tech lithium battery that never runs out of power.
The hull
Any good tank needs a hull to protect the machinery, and Agarthas have all the thickness you could ask for. And there are some nasty spikes on that hull as well. First out are the pale one infantry, these have been lambasted a lot for their low attack score but I think that is the wrong perspective. They have 18 hp, a choice of light and fast or slow and sturdy. And last on the rooster is a tough little bugger called Cavern guard who is going to be our staple for this job. Then we have the sacred Ancient one and Seal guard. These are our heavy armour for special missions. Overall you have great opportunities to adjust your hull for slow or fast movement, traded off by level of protection and damage output.
The guns
The Agarthans have a primitive and ferocious ally in the troglodyte. I think of those as grenades, they do a lot of damage and are quick to recruit, but will die pretty fast and are expensive. Always have a couple ready in your belt, but don´t blow them in vain. Then we have the Boulder throwers, these guys are going to be our main damage dealers early on. These are our gatling guns that will keep firing relentlessly at everything that comes close enough to threaten the hulls integrity while the big cannon locks on target. In CBM these guys are just gold with their AOE 1 boulders. I´ve heard a lot about their low range, but these guys don´t need long range. Actually longer range wouldn´t be good at all for them as they need to get close to aim properly. Rightly deployed there is few troops that can hold a line to these guns early on, we´ll talk about that deployment later.
The Cannon
You have one hell of an arsenal here. Your obvious gunners are of course the Oracles loading the heavy earth shells, varied through water, fire and death. You´ll almost always have an appropriate missile to put in that big barrel. The Earth readers also fill a role here with lighter support fire. A less obvious artillery platform from early on is the Ancient lord, more on that later.
The engine
Again the Oracles are the main recruit for the job. Heavy earth buffs and darkness are going to be a staple ingredients in your armies, it starts out in year one with legions of steel and upgrades from there. This is the oil that will keep your vehicle shiny and up to date.
The workshop
Finally there is those guys on the floor, earth readers and indy mages relentlessly crafting the parts and upgrades to your machine. Always in the background, they carry you empire on their shoulders.
Basically every Agarthan army, big or small, should incorporate the functions of hull, guns, cannon and engine.
Ok, time for our guided tour from isolated caveman to world domination.