Arcoscophile

[Blitz]

In the interest of contributing something to this forum aside from counter-vq arguments... I bring you (drumroll):

Blitz's Guide to Thug Arcoscphile Quick-Expansion

One of the more popular nations is Arcosphile, and it's easy to see why. They are the only nation with a national 3-random (elemental) mage, and have by far the cheapest 3-astral mages. They have elephants (nothing cooler than an elephant), heavy infantry, recuperating priestesses, cheap labs, a pretty nice bless unit, and a fantastic leader in the strategos. Downsides include very weak cavalry and archers, very little blood/death capability, and a lack of any bonus temperature picks. Your troops are either very expensive (elephant), require heavy resources (Hoplite), or even a little of both (Hypaspist). No problem.

Rainbow pretenders are pretty cool. Unfortunately they aren't too good at what we want to do, which is expand our territory, dominion, and domain at an exponential rate. Arcoscophile has the race advantage of being able to crank out a mini rainbow mage for 180 gold. Let's use this to our advantage and use more of a grunt attacker and really work those scales. Since our priesesses can heal all afflictions, we're not going to have to worry about getting our nice pretender all scratched up. Sadly her abilities don't work on the undead, so the GK is out. A vQ is going to cost way too much without killing scales. The other pretender who can really work those independants is the old favorite, the Wurm. For 75 bucks you get a big ugly snake that can lay the lumber on indies like no other. Even better, if we don't spend any points at all on magic, we don't even have to worry about him getting whacked. Just bring him back and heal those whammies and he's good as new.

If you just can't stand to think that your avatar will be obsolete by turn 50 just remember Arcosphile is most likely going to be swimming in elemental gems in the midgame, so the option is always there to empower our snake later. Frankly, I wouldn't bother because there's better things to spend them on, but 80 gems for Air 2 isn't a bad idea. We get mistform, cloud trapeeze, and mirror image... and a winged helmet brings him up to air 3. You can get astral for 80, throw on a couple of + items and bingo, astral 4. This gives astral weapon, gateway, and a few other toys. It's not always the best course of action, but if you cringe at the thought of a thug pretender, keep these options in mind.

For 180 points we get the snake and a hefty 8 base dominion. Cheap castles and quick expansion go together like peanut butter and choclate, so another 120 on a wizard's tower leaves us 200(!) for scales. I'd suggest a healthy dose of order, but spend as you see fit.

Turn 1

Our pretender is a real house against indies. I wouldn't send him in alone against knights, but anything but undead will likely rout after a couple of rounds. 90% of the time you can send him and your starting army out on the first turn... not advisable in serious MP, but if you are the gambling type, the odds are in your favor. Build a priestess, a couple of mammoths, and a few hypaspists. Your snake is army #1. This will be army #2.

Turn 2

Prophetise your priestess. Send out the snake if you haven't done so already. You could send out the mammoth army as well, but usually you won't need them, and if anything they might rout a battle you had won. Watch your snake trash the indies. Smile at your cunning. Build another priestess, and as many hypaspists as you can.


Turn 3

Send your snake off in a random direction. Barring that, send him on a beeline for the nearest chokepoint you wish to secure. Did you know that priestesses are Arcoscophile's best researchers? Neither did I. Now we both know. One researches, the other goes out to play with the army. Stack your mammoths with all your hypaspists and cardaces. This way they don't rout, see? I didn't know that either. If we had a decent bless effect we could use the Heart companions, since their morale is amazing. Amazing how many armies rout against a death 6 blessing and 4 mammoths. We're not using a lich today though so we'll stick to the 2-move hypaspists.

You are looking for a druid province. Look for "woodsmen/blowpipes". Avoid the Dark Vines, those are for the snake to take. Since our dominion is so high, we can see a lot farther than other people. Our scouts can do other things for a while. Like build a fortress in a choke point. How's the snake doing? When he gets to that chokepoint, let the scout build that fort ao he can do other things. Like eating barbarians. Careful with those barbarians though. They can take out a snake on his bad days. Build a Mystic and a few more elephants and hypaspists. 4-1 hypaspist/elephant ratio works nice. When we have 4 mammoths and 16 hypaspists we start our next army. No sense slowing down our expansion.


Turn 4

Look at your new Mystic. Does he have 3 of the same skill? No? Don't feel bad. This only happens 1/64 times. When you get one of these, save him. He's good. He makes bears and lions and air helmets and clam hammers. Does he have 2+ skill in water? This happens a lot more. If he has good water skill send him out looking for sites. We need water gems for clams. No not to abuse them... we're actually going to use them how they were designed! Lastly, if he has 1 in earth, fire, and air, you can send him out scouting too. Since we plan on giving each province a quick level 2 water scan, this guy will quickly cover the other three. if your new mystic dosen't have either of these two skills (or a nice triple), rename him to "dumbass" and put him to work in the library. Actually I tend to rename them to "WWE" for a 2W 1E mage, etc. You do what you like, but this saves me time.

Once we find 1 of each of the 4 elemental sites, we're going to stop searching and just use the searching spells. Just cast it whenever you can. Make sure you do astral scans ASAP. We're going to go through a few thousand astral gems, so best to get them coming in ASAP. Which reminds me. You researched that first. Get all the searching spells including archaic record before you bother with anything else. Since your mages aren't doing anything but researching and looking for sites this is probably what they should be thinking about when they are not looking for sites.

Your army should keep moving, have that priestess in the lab meet up with them. Your prophet needs to look for holy and forest sites. Remember you are looking for a driud. Can you guess why? That's right. He's going to look for sites too. Later he will make things for you, but for now that's his job. Priestesses can make both labs and temples and cost almost nothing. Make lots of these chicks and send them out. When they aren't healing they can make temples. Making temples is good. Our dominion dosen't kill people like emor or... kill people like Miasma, but it stops those bad things from happening to you. This is a good thing. If you have to chose between an elephant and a temple, you probably want to make the temple. Don't stop making mystics though. Except this turn. You have no money, so make a strategos. This guy is really good at standing behind elephants with a flag. Eventually you will have one standing behind all the elephant armies. He's a really good dude to have a herald lance on. They usually carry a bag of wine too. This is the fourth time I've erased the word "mammoth" and replaced it with "elephant". I'm not going to do it anymore, so from now on mammoth means elephant.

How's the snake doing? Unless he's got some nasty affliction like say... well he can fight through just about anything. So unless he's got 4 afflictions let him fight. Oh did you know that your priestesses can heal on the move? Set them to heal and move the army. They will work fast and do their healing before the strategos wake the mammoths up. This is a nice move to do say just before you search and then make a temple. Make sure the army always has at least one priestess in it though. The mammoths really like the girls and if they aren't around they sometimes run the wrong way and might turn said strategos into paste.

Turn 5+

Keep making mystics, elephants, and hypaspists. Some people use hypaspists on the flanks and hoplites in the middle. Those guys have it backwards. Greeks are kinda lazy... instead of sending someone ALL THE WAY AROUND, they just send their mammoths THROUGH people. No need for flankers, see? However that dosen't mean other people don't use them. Notice how much longer that pole on the hoplite is? Looks longer than a lance, dosen't it? Hoplites are better at countering a cavalry charge than any other arcoscophile unit. Ever wonder why those golden era myrmidions look good but basicly suck ***? They use short swords, which not only have a hard time getting through spear walls, but frankly any weapon at all. They also do horrible damage, which is why they are basicly useless for anything except meat shields. If they had spears they might not suck, but don't quote me on that.

Keep using snake to beat on indies. Don't worry so much about searching for holy sites, but if your priestesses aren't doing anthing feel free. They tend to do well at other things though, so this usually isn't the best use of their time. Check on your armies every few fights. Any limpers or badly injured units should be left behind for a priestess to gather up. If they can't keep up... leave 'em.

It took me a while to figure out how to use arco mages. They do have communion abilities, which is nice, but since we don't really have a good native slave it's not my standard tactic. Generally I give each and every mystic two items... a nice pair of boots of the messenger, and a clam of pearls. I try and have at least one carry a Banner of the Northern Star. This is an amazing item. Most of my priestesses will carry a Staff of Storms. This helps compensate for arcoscophile's lack of fliers and missile troops. I usually write a short script for each and every mystic, focusing on each's abilities. Since we have a clam on each of them, they can always cast Power of the Spheres. They also get access to Antimagic and Astral Healing, although I generally have an astrologer cast antimagic first. If you don't want to invest in a Banner of the Northern Star, you can always have two astrologers, one on antimagic, the other on Light of the Northern Star. This gets gem-intensive though, so I tend to avoid it. If you give one of your nature mystics a thistle mace, he can cast Relief after a power of the spheres. This is a VERY strong combination with your mages, and I highly suggest investing ten nature gems for the power to rejuvinate your whole army. If you don't get a green Astrologer, indy shamen work too.

With Power of the Spheres, Summon Storm Power (staff of storms on your priestess, remember), and Summon Earthpower... even your least powerful mystics are now blade winding and thunder striking. 3/4 of them are hasted. Ones with double abilities are most dangerous, but the rainbow mystics gain the most from power of the spheres. Your rare triple mages should probably be kept in the library for ritual spells, but they can wreck hellacious damage on the battlefield as well. Ritual of Returning on these guys is a good idea, and I would load them up with defensive items as you would a rainbow mage in combat.

Arcoscophile's weakness (whose isn't?) is the supercombatant. Elemental magic is *** against a good player, as are elephants. You do get paralyse, mind burn, and some other toys, but in all honesty you need to fight fire with fire. a SSSE Astrologer can easily summon Golems, and those rare EEE mystics can summon all sorts of nasty lifeless beings. Remember to build one of every magic boost item, and you will have little problem getting mages for even the most difficult rituals.

One thing Arco pretty much sucks at is blood magic. Blood Astrologers have a few battlefield uses, and I usually send a few out bloodhunting for forging, but you can't get a healthy blood income going, and even if you could about all you can do is send horrors. You can also empower a mystic and summon some of the devils, but this gets unbelievably expensive, and usually isn't worth the time invested. Getting a couple of the higher-powered devils can be rewarding, but are you really going to research all the way to blood 6-7 for a couple of units? Probably not. Best use is for forging, and limited use at that.

Hope this stream of conciousness ramble helps a few players.