Should improving Arcoscephale Golden Era be a priority?

[Norfleet]

Different, yes. Weaker...not really. You give up the Astrologer, and his full random pick, but you do gain the Philosophers, which are excellent researchers, and the very nice Engineers, a great boon to my castle stalling tactics...alas, they tend to be capitol only and move slowly, but I can forge flying shoes to get them to the front. The only annoyance is the difficulty in making them stop showing up when I press "n", but I get around this by assigning them to untrained blood hunt duty to keep them out of my way.

Yeah, the troops are nigh-unaffordable, and often capitol only as well. So what? It's not a troop theme, obviously.

[Blitz]

It's neither troop based, nor mage based (losing astrologer). That's basicly they key right there isn;t it?

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Blitz:
It's neither troop based, nor mage based (losing astrologer). That's basicly they key right there isn;t it?

I feel that the Philosophers, Engineers, and Sceptic makes up for the minor loss of the Astrologer's one random. You can cover most of your bases there just by taking ze death or ze blood on your pretender, both of which are easy to then jumpstart as a result. Combined with the superior research efficiencies of the Philosopher, who is cheap enough that you can easily churn them out one a turn from turn 1, GE is very much a magocracy.

Besides, with sloth, you can't really afford to buy enough of your troops to do more than serve as bodyguards, anyway.

[PvK]

I don't think GE Arco is weak, but like Mictlan, it might not be intuitive to everyone how to most effectively use it. The sloth slows down heavy troop production, but since they rarely die when used well, and afflicted ones can all be healed, they can accumulate into a numerous enough army, even if they aren't the emphasis. The Wind Riders, Wind Lords, and Myrmidon Champions can all be given extra equipment and so made into nice recruitable thugs, too.

PvK

[Blitz]

don't think GE Arco is weak, but like Mictlan, it might not be intuitive to everyone how to most effectively use it

Been hearing this a lot. Perhaps people might care to enlighten us on their troopless, astrologer-free arcocephale strategies. Sure the Skeptic isn't awful, and the engineer can do some interesting things, but where's the beef folks?

Regular arco isn't that much weaker in a summoning strategy, albiet losing the earth/air gem income and better researcher. It's not like arco has horrible researchers in base, and you don't need THAT many air gems to summon an air queen.

[PvK]

With better research, GE Arco will summon the Air Queen (or whatever) sooner. It's not just what you do, but when you do it.

GE is not "troopless" - it's just not the only good ability. I made good use of 5-6 Myrmidons with 6 extra cardaces and the starting force (and [cough] Shedu - but use Nataj or whatever you prefer), in conquering level 5 independents, for example. Only one died, and by the time the others had some afflictions, I had two priestesses and several times as many replacement myrmidons and fliers ready. I had much better luck with these than I did with regular Arco's Hoplites and Hypaspists, but then, I come from an Ulm/Mictlan/Machaka background, I guess, so my battlefield setup may be different from others'.

I would also tend to make some demi-SC's out of the wind lords by adding some items to them. Add a few Icarians for flying semi-fodder to give them the critical mass to overwhelm targets, and time to arrive at the same time as the infantry. Peltasts get Fire Closest orders, so they stay behind the Cardaces and Myrmidons, throwing javelins and usually not getting into enemy axe range.

Meanwhile Mystics accumulate elemental skills, and forge some Astral boost items (skullcap, banner ...) and research astral/magic boost spells, and/or use Astral pretender so that an Astral thug accompanies mage armies once enemies might use cheap astral duellers - then duels hit the strongest target, and either lose, or are taking a big gamble. Astral and various elemental magics do their things.

Use Pretender or site mages to provide other magic paths if desired.

Etc.

PvK

[Blitz]

GE is not "troopless" - it's just not the only good ability. I made good use of 5-6 Myrmidons with 6 extra cardaces and the starting force (and [cough] Shedu - but use Nataj or whatever you prefer), in conquering level 5 independents, for example.

Well if independants were relevant, this might matter. It's pretty much expected that your army + pretender should be able to expand at 1 province per turn, regardless of theme. Certianly this can't compare to something like Utgard Jotunheim, where the starting 8 units can clear one province, and the pretender another... with no casualties at all. Comparing these two themes is almost comical. The giants get 2 free temperature picks, a better mage than the mystic (6 picks overall, common 3-astral and 3-death Versions). They have excellent blood and death summoning capability, as well as one of the best bang for your buck mages in the game (seithkona). Their army is superior in almost every way... it lacks fliers, but demons more than make up that edge. The only areas you can give the edge to arco are in healing and research... but the seithkona certianly isn't any slouch in the research area. While Jotunheim may not have the selection of pretender choices that arco does, they can use the GK and POD... which hardly leaves them lacking in this area.

Where standard arco can boast edges in more efficient infantry and trampling, giants versus chariots and myrmidons is laughable to say the least. GE has no edge in magic over the giants, certianly no advantage in summons, and forging is a wash at best. Somehow I don't see philosophers and engineers making the difference in a matchup like this.

[ June 23, 2004, 00:33: Message edited by: Blitz ]