Beginner's Guide to EA Arcoscephale

[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.