Strategy for Agartha Early Age

[hako]

My brief opinion is bless strats suck - they should be much harder to implement. They are extremally powerfull, impossible to counter at the begining, very hard to play against, even in later game. Good option would be - until God dormant/imprisoned no bonuses for blessed units, that should balance that strategy little bit.

[HoneyBadger]

I like bless strategies just fine in concept, but I don't have too much of a problem about them not working until your god wakes up. I do feel very confined by the limited choice of 8 total blesses. I think it's a fair tradeoff that if we have to wait until our Pretender wakes up that their be quite a few new things-not unbalanced or more powerful, mind you-just new and different-our blessed troops can do. I'm currently working on some ideas and I'll be sending ideas for new magic paths plus blesses for those paths, into Illwinter, but I'll probably write up a thread for them first, so people can argue about them.

[Epaminondas]

HoneyBadger said:
I like bless strategies just fine in concept, but I don't have too much of a problem about them not working until your god wakes up. I do feel very confined by the limited choice of 8 total blesses. I think it's a fair tradeoff that if we have to wait until our Pretender wakes up that their be quite a few new things-not unbalanced or more powerful, mind you-just new and different-our blessed troops can do. I'm currently working on some ideas and I'll be sending ideas for new magic paths plus blesses for those paths, into Illwinter, but I'll probably write up a thread for them first, so people can argue about them.

Limited? As is, I only primarily use 3 blesses: Water, Fire, and Nature. It seems that we have a lot of bless paths that people do not ordinarily take.

[HoneyBadger]

Which means they're even more limited. I use earth bless a lot though, and occasionally astral. blood and death I only use in certain cases or if they're inevitable-like if I want to use blood magic, a death curse strategy, or I'm playing EA Kailasa and I want the afflictions. I probably use astral the least, because twist fate isn't hard to get, but then additional MR is better for MP games than SP.

[Shovah32]

Fire, water, earth and astral are the only paths i tend to use at level 9(very rarely and almost exclusively with pan ive used nature 9) and often use nature at lvl4-6, i also sometimes use astral 4-6 for mr and blood 4-6(generally only on a moloch when i have the points)

[HoneyBadger]

When I want to add blood to a nation that doesn't have it already (like early Ermor) I'll go with a fountain of blood at blood level 6 or more, but I'll also use blood bless death curse with any nations who have weak, fast sacreds, especially if they fly. Ofcourse, the best one I've come across for this particular strategy is Mictlan, so it's kindof a given anyway.

[Agema]

Note...

Drain has been advocated as a design option for EA Agartha here. I think it's actually a really bad idea. Your capital only mages (Oracles) should have 5-6 paths so 7-8 research. That seems pretty good for a drain strategy. The problem is what is what happens outside your capital - your Earth Reader mages have only E1?1, for 4 research. Once you're outside the early game and setting up secondary forts, drain is ruinous as your non-capital mages are such poor bookworms.

Added to this, your capital mages are in high demand, so you'll have fewer than you think to research. Firstly, those Earth Readers have minimal to low usefulness: you'll need capital mages for useful spellcraft, unless you can find good indy mages (not guaranteed). Secondly, EA Agartha is a prime bless nation, so every army you have in addition to your prophet's needs an Oracle for divine bless. Finally, due to the enormous cost of Oracles, you simply might not be able to afford one every turn, especially early on.

Agarthan Giants are certainly pretty weak compared to other giants (e.g. Niefleheim). However, it's worth dropping those Fire & Water blesses a little. By and large, your giants don't die, so they gain experience, and each XP gets you Att & Def. Take them around a few battles, as you've got (or should have) Nature bless and so regeneration they should pick up 2XP mostly without afflictions (unlike your average mortal), making Agarthan giants much more useful than they initially look. Maybe take +1, even +2, Fire/Water bless, but your research is probably worth more than big +3/+4 blesses in the long run.

[Epaminondas]

Originally Posted by HoneyBadger

I like bless strategies just fine in concept, but I don't have too much of a problem about them not working until your god wakes up. I do feel very confined by the limited choice of 8 total blesses. I think it's a fair tradeoff that if we have to wait until our Pretender wakes up that their be quite a few new things-not unbalanced or more powerful, mind you-just new and different-our blessed troops can do. I'm currently working on some ideas and I'll be sending ideas for new magic paths plus blesses for those paths, into Illwinter, but I'll probably write up a thread for them first, so people can argue about them.

I am not sure if I agree with your suggestion, given that blesses will be far less effective (even obsolete with easy Research settings) by the time imprisoned pretenders wake up.

[Epaminondas]

Originally Posted by hako

My brief opinion is bless strats suck - they should be much harder to implement. They are extremally powerfull, impossible to counter at the begining, very hard to play against, even in later game. Good option would be - until God dormant/imprisoned no bonuses for blessed units, that should balance that strategy little bit.

Given that I am a bless freak, I am not sure if I agree

In all seriousness, I am working on my own mod and have done two things to address the early bless rush:

1. Make PDs much sturdier. Mainly I've doubled the number of troops and use better troops.

2. Improve the national units of nations with weaker sacreds--usually by making mid-level summonables recruitable.

All this is done on the principle that it's better to improve other alternatives than nerf something.

P.S. I realize that this is an old thread but I've been absent from the forum for a while so be forgiving