Q: New to game, need advice - getting wrecked

[jutetrea]

I've tried it twice so far (been playing a big too much

First with Atlantis - had a terrible time with luck 3... still seemed to get hit with invasions/gold loss every time i turned around.

Just finished one (well premature ending of demo) as agartha, worked like a charm. 3 turmoil, 2 sloth, 1 growth, 3 luck, 2 heat with a mini-bless - 4F4A4W3A4D4G0B I think with the sage (37 research to start!). Just purchased the big sacreds and big mages... good quality, low quantity... and equipped my trogs, rushed up to blade wind and started rolling. Good map too, adventurien.. started on the top coast, about 4 from the nearest enemy.

edit: F4A3W4E4A4D4N4 with 3Turmoil, 3 sloth, 2 heat, 1 death, 3 luck

I'm curious what the "end of demo" is... when you take out your first enemy god/starting loc? 4 years? Sometimes it seems to end at the end of 3 years, some at the end of 4 years... but usually just as i have someone on the ropes or just decimated their country.

I haven't found much about Agartha, but with 3H3E 400g priests (divine blessing + blade wind) and big sacreds the bless thingy worked pretty well. Didn't bother jacking 9 in something as I was limited to 4th lvl spells anyway.

Fun, fun... seems i'll try the chaos bit out more, not a huge fan of focusing on bless - although i'm guessing it very much has to do with the race/nationals/capital limiteds.

I've found I like a combat pretender the best, big bull (good hp, trample, regen, lack of slots), dagon (big, trample, good slots) for atlantis, etc.. but it really sucks with no save function if they croak. More fun though

Question: Site finding - water seems easy with voice of tiamat, is there an equivalent for surface? Seems wastful to cast 3 or 4 spells on one province, doesnt that take forever? I had a great finder (lots of 4's), but wanted him researching.. what's an efficient way to search?

Question: What are the different eras about? Stuck on early for now, do the units change? Do more units become available? Do funky things like prices/site types, etc change? Any rule changes between eras?

Also really wish there was a pdf version of the manual online

[Aleph]

There's acashic record which searches for everything (unlike tiamat which is only elemental) but is cost inefficient for 25 astral unless you're already dominating. I believe certain land types have higher percentages of magic sites (wastelands, and starred provinces on certain maps) which might make them a useful target for akashic, but otherwise it's not a good idea.

In the current iteration of the game, you can have 1 spellcaster at a time doing monthly (SHIFT-M) search spells/spell and it will target okay - so 1 guy doing dark knowledge, 1 guy doing voice of apsu, etc. It tends to target newly acquired provinces 1st and will sometimes turn off for no reason or target capitals, but in general its a decent low management solution if you have low ranked mages of several stripes to spare.

There's no pdf manual to prevent piracy.

Bless is 100% nation specific, as are pretty much all strats in the game - you want strong non-capital only sacred troops, or absolutely amazing capital only sacred. Mictlan, one of my favorite nations, has good non-capital sacred troops and a ton of sacred unique summons. Playing them with the same scales you would play with Yomi is a roadmap for frustration.

While the nation names stay the same between eras (at least, for the most part, as there are some nations which are not present in all era), the units tend to change pretty dramatically from era to era. Agartha, for example, loses most of its Pale Ones as the eras progress and ends up a heavily armed and armored human nation with pretty strong death/fire/earth battlemages and some kickin' national summons. The most dramatic change award goes to Ermor, which starts out pseudo-roman with a little death and ends up 100% undead, with no national units able to be purchased with gold, the best magical income in the game to fuel a large variety of unique national summons, and a hostile domain which decimates population and reanimates freespawns everywhere it reaches. Mictlan changes a ton from Early to Mid (similar troops but losing its defining magical competency) and then goes back very similar to early in late.

[jutetrea]

Awesome, didn't know about shift-M, it was such a hassle that i'd rarely search.

gah, so much to try! bloody post is taking forever, guess i should have sprung for the quick delivery

I'm almost tempted to get a cracked version just so i can finish a freakin game. Unfortunately the only cheats I use are no-cd cracks for convenience.

being limited to only 5 nations is good, eases you into the huge quantity.

btw, nilheim giants - SUCK! i guess i let him get to big, cuz once i was ready to rumble so was he, and he wiped me. Trample chariots - core of my army - completely useless Love it!