A glance at Bogarus

[thejeff]

Though it's hard to get the needed boosters without pretender/empowering/lucky indies.
And you still need to get to N4 for GoR .

In fact, the only non artifact boosters you can make natively are Starshine Skullcap and Skull of Fire. A few others with rare path combinations on a Starets. That surprised me, for such a diverse nation.
Of course, you'll empower in blood, which opens up those boosters. And a simple pair of Earth boots gets you Coins and Rings which open up most of what you need.

Blood is definitely the way to go for SCs. You've got the research to grab some of the uniques even with some sidetracks for other paths along the way.

[krpeters]

For midgame, Starets can cast Astral Fires relatively easily. If you have 5 in a battle, have the lead one carry two astral pearls. Even with only 2S he can cast Light of the Northern Star. Then the other 4 can lay down Astral Fires repeatedly.

[janthony]

I don't have enough done to make a full strategy guide for Bogarus, but they are by far my favourite nation. The sheer amount of summons they have is what attracted me first, and being a bit of a Rusophile. Then I realized what a powerful Blood nation they were. Also a great Death nation if you can get the national heroes. Of course, I play vanilla so a lot of these things might not be valid for CBM. I take a dormant Great Mother with W2E4N4 - the minor bless is perfect for tossing a sacred shroud on old and decrepit battle mages. The water is for site searching and access to the Beregina (W3E1N2). And with N4 you have GoR and the Mountain Villa (healer, seducer, A2N31S). And the Startsi, with a crystal coin from the alchemist gets you the RoS and RoW, leading you to practically every single magic booster in the game. The cavalry does well as a starting army, especially if you can kit out a Grand Prince (Velikii Knyaz) as a thug. And by year 2 you should have access to all magic paths with every new Fortified City mass producing Masters of Names. Eventually you can send out five of them with the Banner of the Norther Star and they can spam Astral Fires, Paralyze, or Celestial Chastisement. (Maybe Astral Magic is a bit overpowered in vanilla.)

[janthony]

Last night I altered my Pretender design with great results: now Earth Mother can be Awake and a W2E4N4. Good for early expansion and site searching. Scales are Dominion 6, Order 3, Cold 3, Growth 2, Drain 1. Sure, you could take two hits on Misfortune and keep G3 and Magic 0, but Bogarus is best when it collects its three National Heroes and the Multi-hero Bogatyri aren't too shabby. You still keep the regen/rejuv bless for mages with a shroud (great for site searching, as even when diseased, they take three times as long to lose usefulness). With Earth Mother searching early, you get plenty of good gems from the get go–so you can equip your Boyar/GrandPrince thugs quickly. Frost Brand is great for a one turn build and send, as your bodyguard cavalry don't take damage from the AoE. Drain doesn't hurt Bogarus too much as you'll still get Startsi who are 12/13 even on Drain 1–and with an E4 blessing on shrouded battlemages, the drain won't affect them too badly–though with enough gems I'm sure those rejuvenating boots will come in handy too. I haven't tried it yet, but I'm sure a couple of well equipped thugs with Malaia Druzhnia (lesser kith) bodyguards can take out an early SC pretender–especially, if there's a bow of war with high precision traveling with them.

I'm amazed it took me so long to arrive at this discovery, because the weakest aspect of my previous strategy was always the early game/quick start. The heavy cavalry is named the familial bodyguard of the Velikii Knyazi. The Grid Druzhnia were more difficult to translate, but it might be "guide/marksman kith". Every other guide I've seen suggests taking Sloth with Bogarus; sure, the low end starting army is pretty useless, but with fortified cities you can churn out the Malaia Druzhnia at high speed. Sure, going up against an army of Hochmeisters might do you in, but run back to the forest where your Leshiy is hanging out. If you haven't used the Leshiy because he's 60 gems or requires N6, try it out. I'm sure there are more powerful SCs who aren't limited to a forest, but a Leshiy in a forest choke point can wipe out entire armies–especially with Boots of Antaeus. And, of course, if you get Baba Yaga you've got Tartaran Gate easy, and binding Mastema can get you the Demon Lords. Bogarus holds out in my mind as one of the most versatile and powerful nations in the game, they just require effort.