Guide: Agartha, Pale ones - a study in darkness (CBM)

[pyg]

Nice guide! Just a couple of notes... The minor Death bless combined with the low precision of the artillery really racks up the afflictions on those close to and behind the front line. I started with 5 troglodytes in one expansion army and after a short while noticed that three of them were either limping or crippled. Kind of funny actually... Anyway my solution was to either not care too much or delay/don't bless during indy expansion.

Also, I think a GoRed Umbral is quite a nice thug. Not as nice as a Golem, but cheaper and easier to access even without Nature on your pretender due to the prevalence of indy Nature sites and mages. Like others have noted, I too have found Astral to be a little hard to come by in some games. Playing Argatha quite similar to your guide has never left me short on Death gems though. I think your guide could say more about Umbrals. They are pretty amazing IMHO.

Originally Posted by vfb

The Forge Lord can only forge one thing a month, and if he's doing that, he's not doing all the other wonderful things pretenders can do. So, I don't think it's too much.

I don't know, I usually choose a pretender to do mostly one thing or a couple of things and I would pick the Forge Lord to do mostly forging and occasionally ritual magic.

[Fantomen]

Originally Posted by pyg

Nice guide! Just a couple of notes... The minor Death bless combined with the low precision of the artillery really racks up the afflictions on those close to and behind the front line. I started with 5 troglodytes in one expansion army and after a short while noticed that three of them were either limping or crippled. Kind of funny actually... Anyway my solution was to either not care too much or delay/don't bless during indy expansion.

Oh,yeah I guess I should have been more clear about this. Generally do NOT put troglodytes directly in front of boulder throwers, these are quite separate tactics. The exeption is when you are thugging out a trog lord or when buying troggs to flesh out a force for a single cruical fight. If you have big enough frontline and trog on the sides on attack rear you can keep the trogs away from the boulders for a while, but there is always a big risk the trogs will run into the line of fire so...A better alternative to combine with boulders are Barathrus pact (earth elementals) as they have regeneration.

I think that if you use trogs you better not care if they die, grenades...

Also, I think a GoRed Umbral is quite a nice thug. Not as nice as a Golem, but cheaper and easier to access even without Nature on your pretender due to the prevalence of indy Nature sites and mages. Like others have noted, I too have found Astral to be a little hard to come by in some games. Playing Argatha quite similar to your guide has never left me short on Death gems though. I think your guide could say more about Umbrals. They are pretty amazing IMHO.

I might do a follow up talking about late mid game and end game. This guide so far only outlines your power curve until winter year three or so, which is early mid game as I see it. I need to play some more endgames with Agartha to be sure of myself here but I have some ideas...

I also like GOR:ed Umbrals. If you let a indy shaman/druid borrow one of those rings of sorcery your pretender forged you can build up some nature power until mid/late year four and start pumping them out.

But umbrals come into play much earlier than than I think. If you go by my strategy you will/can have marble warriors+umbrals by winter year 3, which is a pretty awesone addition to your armies. Especially if you add curse of stones, iron bane and darkness to that.

I suppose there is a whole lot more you can do with umbrals but I haven´t tested them enough so others can probably give better advice on that. I´m thinking some kind of stealthy raiding squads. But I´d like to try stuff myself in MP before recommending them in a guide so I´ll be back on that.

Right now I´m testing to go Enchantment instead of alteration after construction 7. Dropping deep well then make a statue/hidden in sand factory. I think this is a good alternative if you´re not in war. Hidden in sand gives you nice mages and dust warriors who are very good in combination with fire evocations, and you have perfect mages for magma eruption. Statues works well with boulder throwers. Riches from beneath isn´t too bad in CBM either, and lets you pump out those cavern guards like no tomorrow.

[chrispedersen]

GoR on an umbral is one of the reasons I *really* like N4-N5 on your pretender.

Whats not to like about an ethereal, stealthy, 68 hp undead SC chassis with drain life?

[Redeyes]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

Whats not to like about an ethereal, stealthy, 68 hp undead SC chassis with drain life?

Dust to Dust, low mr, low attack, low defense, nature (not native), enhancement (off-school).

Not to say that they aren't an excellent investment on a per gem basis.

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by Redeyes

Dust to Dust, low mr, low attack, low defense, nature (not native), enhancement (off-school).

Not to say that they aren't an excellent investment on a per gem basis.

It was a rhetorical question. However, its stats, in aggregate are better than any other agarthan unit. Don't understand the enhancement comment. Construction, conjuration and alteration are target schools for agartha.

[Redeyes]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

It was a rhetorical question. However, its stats, in aggregate are better than any other agarthan unit. Don't understand the enhancement comment. Construction, conjuration and alteration are target schools for agartha.

It's gift of reason that's in enhancement.

They're certainly among the best units, and weapons, available to Agartha, but they aren't universally effective; I once saw a small horde of them destroyed by a couple of living cloud spells (under storm, though.)

With darkness and anything to boost their protection there's very few things that can stand up to them.

[Fantomen]

Originally Posted by Redeyes

It's gift of reason that's in enhancement.

No it's not. GoR is in Thaumaturgy.


Good catch about the Troglords lack of headslot Chris, not that it makes any real difference.

It would be interesting to see how this strategy would pan out with CBM 1.7. Big Agartha boost and new earth booster, but nerfed forge lord and no hammers for spamming mentors. My guess is that under those circumstances there are better pretender options.