EA Arco - uncle moneybags

[Trumanator]

Try stone idols + skeptics for extra lulz.

[Burnsaber]

Originally Posted by Trumanator

Try stone idols + skeptics for extra lulz.

Heh. Delightfully paradoxical.

Sceptic: "THERE ARE NO GODS!"
Peasant: "No.. Gods?"
Sceptic: " THAT'S RIGHT! NO GODS.. Other than this Stone Idol! Worship it!"

[Baalz]

Originally Posted by aaminoff

So I have been wanting for months to try this using the Virtue. My question is, how important is the minor N bless? In my experience with Helheim's Vanjarls, the regen just does not kick in all that often - if you are taking damage, you take enough damage that fairly quickly the mistform gets popped and then a couple large hits and thats it. Whereas most of the time awe + defense + protection keeps the hits off entirely. The exception would be poison, where regen is a great way to be poison-immune, but we can get there by using nature magic instead.

I want to skip the N bless because with the Virtue's new path cost of 70 or so, I can afford only one new path: E4, which also bumps up her naked protection into the range where stray hits that get through from typical indies are fairly minor.

[edit: Im contemplating this under CBM, where the Virtue starts with A and S and is a bit cheaper]

I don't think a N bless is critical for EA Arco, more nice to have. It is critical for nations like Eriu with a whole lot of lighter thugs, but the oriads can cast regen themselves if they want to and are likley tough enough to make do without in lots of situations. Plus, you're not fielding that many (compared to ie Eriu) so you can stick better equipment on them.

[Alpine Joe]

First off....Great guide Baalz it is really good. Ea Arco is a fun nation to play.

Having just come off my first dom3 win ever (nonforum game), as EA Arco, let me explain my build in case anyone wants to try out something a little different.

I humbly submit this as my preferred Arco build:

Awake Forgelord F2A3E4S3
Dom 10 O3S3M2D2

Awake, this pretender can expand as well as Baalz' bull but offers a lot for the mid-end game.
With Dom 10 he has enough awe against line troops, Cast Air shield to protect from arrows.
Forge yourself a midget masher on turn 1, start expanding from turn two. This guy can take on normal indy concentrations just fine. Your philosophers research alteration which give the FL the buffs he needs to take on tougher indies while you also expand with slingers/chariots.

Once expansion is done the FL really shines. He can forge some really useful stuff for arco. Cheap rings and really cheap staffs of elemental mastery mean you can get oriads and mystics up to casting any elemental spell. I particularly liked mobile orieds with SoEM and RoW dropping first round Fog Warriors/Wrathful Skies/Rain of Stones/Army of Lead/Gold depending on what I was facing. Crystal Shields instead of SoEM if you want a staff of storms along. All this can be done really cheaply with the forgelord. If they bring lightning immunity it is not hard at all to reach firestorm, heat from hell, grip of winter, or other big elemental battlefield enchantments. Even with Drain you have great research, particularly if you use skeptics to create a neutral research province, so I think you have a good chance to get to artifacts first, and your forgelord can forge almost all of them dirt cheap (I did this in the game I won). I really like to build up icarids in my forts, they are weak, but can fly. Once you are dropping Fog Warriors and Army of Gold in every fight what really starts to matter is their mobility.

Of course, a lot of this can be done with communions, but they are really unwieldy, so having cheap rings and staffs to boost levels makes you a lot more flexible. It is particularly handy to have an independent oriad along with the communion to first-round fog warriors or army of lead/gold incase they try to kill a big communion with rain of stones or firestorm.

No death makes thugging hard. I took away a Necromancer site from an enemy in my game which made it not too hard to get into death with rings already forged, but before that I made do with sleepers, golems and oriads. In retrospect with all my savings from forging I probably could have gotten some of the elemental royalty but I always assume they are already gone.....

With elemental boosters you are in reach to cast all of the big gem-gen globals. I found EBDW with my pretender particularly useful.

Of course, this win was against some pretty noobish players, so probably doesn't mean much, but I think it is fun to at least think about a pretender who can both expand and be an awesome forging machine mid-game in contrast to Baalz' bull (which has its own advantages).

[Illuminated One]

Yeah, the forge lord is really my fav.

An interesting twist would be to take him with death 4. Does get you into death, and you're forging skull helmets for 6 gems.
But I have no death mages for the boosters...
Yeah, but you have recruit anywhere flying/stealth commanders which will only cast the item spell raise skeletons. You can easily get quickness which lets you cast the spell twice. One of these guys can take strong PD on his own, combine them for a massive army out of nowhere.
Oh, and when you exchange the skull helmets for life drain standards on some of them good riddance enemy sc.

[Baalz]

Oh yeah, I love me some forge lord. I find when I play one though at a certain point its hard to justify using him for anything other than forging rings of wizardry (for 17S I think?) and crystal shields, which makes the opportunity cost of sticking other paths on him high. For dropping big combat spells crystal shields are often better than elemental staffs for you (cheaper, leaves a hand free). Even once you've got a good stock of RoW yourself you can usually trade them for a massive profit - even alchemizing. Just my experience using the forge lord...I have a hard time really leveraging extra paths.

Oooh, I've also been burned too often to take strong death + strong misfortune. Completely unscientific and antectdotal, but it seems like in my testing d3/m3 cripples you in year one around 25% of the time. D2/M2 is probably not that far off.

[Foodstamp]

Yay another Baalz guide. The one you wrote recently on MA Oceania inspired me to pick the game up once again after months of playing other stuff. I am about to wrap that game up, so I will definitely try this one next. Thanks for your efforts!

[Alpine Joe]

Originally Posted by Baalz

Oh yeah, I love me some forge lord. I find when I play one though at a certain point its hard to justify using him for anything other than forging rings of wizardry (for 17S I think?) and crystal shields, which makes the opportunity cost of sticking other paths on him high. For dropping big combat spells crystal shields are often better than elemental staffs for you (cheaper, leaves a hand free). Even once you've got a good stock of RoW yourself you can usually trade them for a massive profit - even alchemizing. Just my experience using the forge lord...I have a hard time really leveraging extra paths.

Oooh, I've also been burned too often to take strong death + strong misfortune. Completely unscientific and antectdotal, but it seems like in my testing d3/m3 cripples you in year one around 25% of the time. D2/M2 is probably not that far off.

I should clarify that the D in this case represents Drain. I have also had tragic experiences with death (3 half-pop plague events on turns 2,3, and 5 in my cap, with luck 3! in mists of time) and pretty much never take it anymore, especially not with misfortune. Also with mystics being such a good recruit-anywhere, I wouldn't want to tank the income hit from death. Drain is okay with arco as you still have good research and can set up a neutral research province.

Air on the FL is optional of course, but lets him cast air shield early (vital for soloing early indies), and is also really useful for affording the multiple staves of storms I find i need all over the place in the endgame.

SoEM also let you get access to any elemental ritual. Even with RoW and earth boots, you still need SoEM to cast earth attack, for example, a ritual I am probably too addicted too. Also the gem gen globals which you can opportunistically grab. Lastly, A/F combo lets you forge the magic lamp, and the Djinn is great to have access to as Arco (this is just personal preference, I love the Djinn!)

[aaminoff]

I suppose I should post this in a general dominion-push thread, oh well.

For purposes of pushing dominion, is Dom9 + 5 temples the same as Dom10? If you have Dom10, do additional temples not help you at all? (I mean other than generating the temple checks).

- Alex

[Torin]

its almost the same 90% vs 100%. But the reason behind 10 is better awe to your awake expander.
To the purpose of dominion expand 10 is too much.

Forge lord is too good in CBM i guess. I didnt take it for my current EA Acro game however.

With a polarized nature this nation has poor troop choice and very nice commanders. If it had spies and powerful priests then it would be close to 100% in terms of commander usefulness.

sceptics are cheap in cbm but will ignite your neighbours when found. Better use on the side your enemies are.