Why am I not able to win the Orania Map ?

[Ironhawk]

JimKnopf said:
Now to my curent setup

....

Any stupid choices in your opinion ?

You've made some odd scale choices for a Pretender which was clearly designed to be focused on Dominion. In particular, you note that you cannot keep your troop production up with the AI, and yet you have neither Order nor Productivity. Keep in mind that in head-to-head combat, Arco troops are better than average. So even if you went for a purely military victory vs the AI, you should have decent chances. To me, this indicates that you may be recruiting the wrong troops or be deploying your armies with bad makeups?

My suggestion for you is to use a "canned" setup and playstyle for Arco. Then, after you win a full game with that setup, you will have plenty of experience to continue on with any other SP game (as Arco or other nation). But first a few points when playing the AI.

1) The AI percieves low PD provinces as "weak" and will attack them. Keep good PD in your border provinces (say 11-15pd).
2) The AI percieves your overall strength only by number of troops. Consult the stats constantly and do not let yourself fall behind. Build garbage troops (like slingers or militia) to boost your numbers and keep yourself in the 2nd or 3rd rank of troop numbers.
3) AI never declares peace but may turn its attention elsewhere (like to fighting a different AI). Watch your neighbors carefully and if it looks like an AI is letting up on you, then you may be safe to let up on them for a while.

As for the canned setup, try something like this:
Inidies: 6
Sites: 75
A Strong Combat Pretender, like a Wyrm or Red Dragon to help with initial expansion.
Order 3, Prod 3, Death 3, Misf 3, Magic 3
(Order 3 minimizes Misf 3. Death3 is safe base dom2)

Early Game:
Build hypaptists and elephants in a 3:1 or 4:1 ratio and group them in the same squad (high hypaptist morale keeps the elephants from routing). Fill out the rest of your ranks with hypaptists or (if you are low on resources) the javelin-wielding inf that arco gets. Spearhead formation with the elephant/hyp squad at the front. Focus on your research and buy Mystics non-stop to try and get Mystic with 3 magic in a single path.

Mid Game:
Same troop loadout as before but augmented with Mystics to employ the Arco battlemagic. Research level 3 conj (i believe?) to get the combat magic path booster spells and then as much Evocation as you can. The spells you want are: Blade Wind (incredible vs. the ai), Falling Fires, Falling Frost, Fireball, etc. Use Gifts from Heaven or Lightning spells only vs heavy armor troops. Cast quickness if you can. Forge booster items for your 3magic mystics to get them to 4 and 5 (do not risk these mystics in combat!!).

Late Game:
Use your boosted Mystics to summon the Elemental Royalty and forge up equipment for them to be SCs. Additionally you should now be able to cast the mega artillery spells like Murdering Winter and Flames from the Sky. These spells in particular will devastate the ai which relys on troop numbers and cannot adapt its strategy to avoid bombardment.

[Vicious Love]

What, no astrologers? Magical versatility may be Arcoscephale's greatest strength, but raw astral oomph really isn't that far behind. And can be remarkably synergistic with their elemental magic.

[Ironhawk]

Astrologers are great, but he's playing vs the AI so he needs AoE spells, not single target. I suppose I could have covered some astral buffs but I was trying to trim things down to the bare minimum for a new player.