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  #11  
Old May 12th, 2007, 08:19 AM

Shovah32 Shovah32 is offline
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Default Re: LA Agartha Advice Wanted

Thanks again max. Anyone got any advice on pretender set-up or how to build agarthan SCs with their fairly limited magic(i have some ideas but want to hear others)?
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  #12  
Old May 14th, 2007, 05:30 AM

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Default Re: LA Agartha Advice Wanted

Here's another update from my learning experiences with Agartha. I usually want to focus on a good lategame, and so in Agartha's case that means taking Astral and Nature on my pretender (which also gives access to Air through Faerie Queens and/or Gift-of-Reason'ed Tartarians). The part I've been having trouble with is my early game expansion, and the most successful early game I've had so far (playing ten turns or so of a game and then quitting) was when I forgot about trying to play them as a bless nation and focused on conventional troops. IIRC my pretender was:

D9S6N4 imprisoned master lich
Order-3
Growth-2
Misfortune-3
Drain-2

Drain-2 doesn't hurt research much because Ktonian necromancers are sacred and high-research. I had plenty of cash in the early game, and since I'm using conventional troops I can use cave captains instead of Ktonian Necromancers (required for large numbers of Blindfighters). Once I'd taken the territory around my capitol I had about 200 resources, which is pretty average. Expansion worked well with 25-30 crossbowmen and 5-6 cave drakes and 1-3 entrance guards as blockers; on indies 9 they were taking out most provinces with 1 or 2 losses each time. This let me build necromancers most turns and research toward (in this case) Conjuration-5 for Umbrals. (There was an ichthyid province nearby, so I knew I could get an underwater leader, and I wanted to expand into the water ASAP. This was Glory of the Gods. Edit: okay, this was dumb of me. I forgot that ichthyids don't have any undead leadership, so I'm about to blow an extra 30 gems for a Tomb Oracle. [Nope, Mound King was cheaper.])

Basically I had to forego an E9 bless and take Drain-2, and got Growth-2 and Heat-0 in exchange relative to my earlier tries. In play this forced me to forego blindfighters for my expansion, which turned out to be not much of a loss. I expect to be in a much stronger position by the time I finally run into the AI nations, and I just may play this game through to completion. My necromancers are slightly weaker than in previous games because of 1.) no E9 bless and 2.) Drain scale, but as long as I make battles short this shouldn't be much of a problem. I was able to afford my favorite D9 bless on my necromancers, which makes me happy.

Hope that's useful to somebody.

-Max
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  #13  
Old May 14th, 2007, 11:42 AM

Shovah32 Shovah32 is offline
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Default Re: LA Agartha Advice Wanted

Thanks again. Im assuming that the magic gives a nice bless for oracles and sepulchrals(+2 MR, minor regen to avoid afflictions and D9 to handle other tough units/SC's) aswell as the necromancers(MR is always good, sacred shrouds keep diseased necromancers alive and D9 makes them cripple enemies with afflictions). The D9 is probably also used for death globals and kick starting tartarians.


edit: Can anyone give me any advice on what to use for thugs/SCs at various points in the game and how to equip each type?
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  #14  
Old May 14th, 2007, 03:58 PM

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Default Re: LA Agartha Advice Wanted

My astral and nature picks were motivated less by blesses than by the desire to have access to Dispel, Wish, Gift of Reason, Faerie Queen, Gift of Health, Ring of Sorcery/Wizardry forging (which I find very useful in jump-starting any number of booster paths), and yes, Tartarians. All late-game stuff, with my scales and battlemages intended to carry me through the mid-game. I might have settled for N3 instead of N4 except for the fact that, yes, regen is a nice bonus on sepulchrals and mages, but N4 also means that I can forge a thistle mace to forge a treelord staff to summon Tarrasques if I want to.

Access to Dispel has become more important to me since LA Ermor dropped Burden of Time on me in one game and it became clear that none of the AIs had any interest in dispelling it. It wasn't crippling given that I had skull mentors, but it just wasn't any fun and I wanted it to go away. LA Agartha has a tiny bit of astral on mages but I'm more comfortable with S5 or S6. (On a master lich Mind Duel vulnerability doesn't matter.)

I'll reiterate that I'm no kind of pro, especially at LA Agartha, but so far this is working for me. I'm leading in income and second in provinces and research and steadily consuming MA Ulm and a neglected corner of indies. I have more money than I know what to do with so I'm just building temples and forts; this is far superior to my previous strategy (D9E9S4N4 master lich, Dom 4, Order-3 Misfortune-3 Death-3 Cold-3 I think on the theory that gems matter more than cash in the late game) which almost got me dominion killed and had me constantly strapped for cash. Not a really huge change in the way I spent pretender points, but now it's not a temptation to buy blindfighters. Cave Knights and crossbowmen are my friends, and Cave Drakes are upkeep-free.

Doesn't hurt that I've gotten lucky in my site-searching, either. +18 death gems per turn, summer of year 3.

-Max

P.S. I haven't used any thugs or I'd speak up; I think I mentioned that I did try a Tomb Oracle with the marble breastplate thing + Charcoal Shield + Fire Brand + Soul Vortex towards the end of one game that I was losing, but it wasn't enough to turn the game around. It's hard to go wrong with Wraith Lords, though, even if it's hard to forge Winged Boots for them.
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  #15  
Old May 14th, 2007, 04:14 PM

Shovah32 Shovah32 is offline
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Default Re: LA Agartha Advice Wanted

Would some such as, say a robe of shadows be better than a marble breastplate for an SC who can cast the earth protection spells(stoneskin/ironskin/invunerability)?

Also do you prefer firebrands or shadowbrands?
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  #16  
Old May 14th, 2007, 04:20 PM
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Default Re: LA Agartha Advice Wanted

Quote:
Shovah32 said:
Would some such as, say a robe of shadows be better than a marble breastplate for an SC who can cast the earth protection spells(stoneskin/ironskin/invunerability)?

Also do you prefer firebrands or shadowbrands?
I would say a robe of shadows is always better than a marble breastplate, etheral is always better than protection. Don't foget boots of stone/robe of shadows combo as well.

I like both swords, my favourites are SC's that can have 1 of each and a shield ie...3 arms plus. There should be a spell that can grow body parts...
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  #17  
Old May 14th, 2007, 04:24 PM

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Default Re: LA Agartha Advice Wanted

If you had to pick one of the swords which would it be? And vrs most regular armies i would probably take the breatplate(assuming the SC didnt have earth magic) over the robe since the robe lets you ignore 75% of regular damage(with magic doing alot of damage to your low prot SC) but high prot, generally 20+, lets you ignore alot more than that vrs most weapons(bows, spears, shortswords ect).
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  #18  
Old May 14th, 2007, 04:36 PM

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Default Re: LA Agartha Advice Wanted

I would take the breastplate (or boots of stone) normally, but as you say Tomb Oracles can cast Ironskin. Umbrals are ethereal and still take plenty of damage from regular troops, but a naked Wraith Lord is Prot 22 with Ethereal, which is basically what you'd get from a Robe of Shadows-equipped Tomb Oracle; with Soul Vortex a naked Wraith Lord is essentially immune to most normal units in any quantity. Edit: Don't forget that a Marble Breastplate increases encumbrance and a Robe of Shadows doesn't. [I had a bug once where a Wraith Lord wearing Boots of Stone took huge amounts of fatigue from spellcasting. Don't know if it happens with the Marble Breastplate but it's still +8 spellcasting encumbrance or something.]

So yeah, Robe of Shadows. Of course a Ring of Regen would be nice given their high HP base, and of course a Pendant of Luck. Reinvigoration can be gotten from Summon Earthpower instead of items; perhaps Boots of Quickness, Horror Helmet, and Golden Shield would make a nice combination given the death magic on the oracle and the high parry of the shield. For swords I'm partial to Woundflame if you can get it, and a Shadow Brand if you can't for the area-effect AN damage; but perhaps there's another sword that leverages the oracle's high strength better. I think there's a sword that does area-effect AP or AN damage.

-Max
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  #19  
Old May 14th, 2007, 11:00 PM
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Default Re: LA Agartha Advice Wanted

Slightly off topic, but is Bone Armour (built in Vortex) worth it against high MR troops like Helheim? For example if you were to put it on an Ice Devil?
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  #20  
Old May 15th, 2007, 12:13 AM

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Default Re: LA Agartha Advice Wanted

Probably not, because 1.) their MR is high enough that you will leech only a fraction of the normal HP/fatigue, and 2.) Vanir are expensive enough to be worth killing even one-by-one without crowd control spells. That is to say, Soul Vortex usually doesn't kill all that many chaff so much as it gives you back fatigue, and against Vanir it will kill even fewer. Not worth the low Prot on Bone Armour.

-Max
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