The Bogarus Problem

[Jazzepi]

I don't know why people constantly refer to PoD for Bogarus like it's the only SC pretender you can get. Personally I think the cyclops is much better.

Jazzepi

[JimMorrison]

Honestly I think you're right, but I still think, after playing with the Pretender Creator some more, that my playstyle is much better supported by taking a Production scale, and the swap from PoD to Cyclops doesn't really free up any excess points. Your build is pretty decent despite that - I just can't see myself using it, as it still forces you to be heavily reliant on Voi.

Well that and the Cyclops was the first awake SC that I tried to play with, and no matter what I did, he would get horribly afflicted in no time unless I waited for Cons4 and put a Ring of Regen on him, plus whatever else I had the gems for at the time. I don't know how people get away with it. I guess holding him a couple of turns and making a basic shield is necessary? Seems to cut into the stated benefit of an awake SC. People make claims like "1 province per turn for the first year", then we find out they often wait until turn 4 so they can get the gems for a shield and forge it, before going out. O.o

[Kuritza]

Dont touch Voi guys with a 10-foot pole unless they are Voi archers.
Production 1 is more or less ok for Bogarus because its fortified cities leech tons of resources from neighbouring lands (unless you are out of luck and get three grasslands near your capitol... sigh). Prod 1 is something you can afford even with an awake SC God.
>> A pile of crap is still crap.
Pile of crap with kite shields lasts long enough. Even if you field a whole army of mages (and it doesnt bite the dust when your opponent casts some earthquakes) it needs time to deal damage. Pile of crap with flaming arrows can kill some enemy archers or Rlyeh chaff etc. Pile of crap on horseback with lances can actually fight. Etc, etc.
So imho its awake God and *some* scales.

[Malarkey]

Wow I'm glad there was as much conflict on the issue within the community as there was within myself.

So most of us can agree on the fact that the military is crap outside of the slightly overpriced heavy cavalry.
Some say go Sloth, forget the Cav, and mass voi archers with some meat shields and maybe shoot for flaming arrows.
Others say take some Production in order to be able to afford the Cavalry. To me, going Sloth seems a waste and seems like admitting that your army is just going to be ****ty.

Again, I dont think that Order is necessary with 200% tax and simagrls patrolling.

As far as Awakening goes - what kind of Bogarus endgame is there? Bogarus can get to endgame early because of such powerful research, but without a mage with good magic skill, who will cast the spells? Actually this is a problem for me with all nations - I always end up designing my Pretender as being able to cast my endgame spells (ie Marignon pretender gets Astral and Fire to be able to summon the Heavenly Choir, though maybe short a point or two to be boosted). But with no obvious endgame strategy, what would you all recommend? Like I said, I was tempted towards high blood. What kind of endgame does D5/E5 open up? I ask because with higher skill in magic, I'd have to either sacrifice Awakening or Scales and I usually hate sacrificing scales.

I'd also still like an opinion on Bogarus' National Summons like the Leshy.

[MaxWilson]

Or else Sloth is like admitting that you'll need to build 50% more forts to have the same-sized army. Since you want to build forts anyway for researchers this isn't always so bad--you're trading gold for design points and getting more mage-factories as a bonus.

About endgames: if you have enough gems, you can bootstrap to almost anything. D5 is plenty to make D4 demiliches who can cast Darkness, Rigor Mortis, Stygian Paths (with a couple of boosters), that Army of Wraiths spell or whatever, etc. E5 will get you Troll Kings and Earth Kings, who can do any battle-casting you want. Pretender aside, Bogarus has enough communion power (via Communion/Sabbath Master/Slave) to leverage research power into powerful spells. That said, I personally don't like having weak recruitable-anywhere mages, but in the endgame individual (unboosted, uncommunioned) mages become less of a factor because Battlefield Enchantments start taking over.

-Max

[chrispedersen]

Now there would be an excellent challenge.

The winner of a large LA game - as bogarus...
Prize: Have a merc named after you...

[Tifone]

Damn, if someone named PinkTenderFluffyBunny69 wins this, you will eat your hat for this chris XD

[Baalz]

MaxWilson said:

Hunh. I've been confused about this for a while, since Baalz posted about using Send Lesser Horror to kill SCs, and this post made me finally good and check it out... and it appears that Morale 30 does make you (virtually?) immune to fear. Conclusions:

1.) Thanks Micah. If nothing else, you straightened that issue out for me.

2.) I love Banquet for the Dead even more now. Not only do Ditanim have Fear +0, but they're immune to fear themselves. E10N6 Ditanu are cool.

-Max

Hmmmm, I've been using lesser horrors to quite reliably send Harbingers fleeing with negative morale in the Global War game. Is their morale less than 30?

[DonCorazon]

Harbingers are Morale 18.

[Nikelaos]

hey i'm a noob and i was glad to find this thread and to see everyone was having the same problem as me but after some experimenting i found my own little solution capable of taking down 20 double blessed mictlan jags.

try a W5 father of winters, with high dominion and scales

productivity-3 (a must for your good troops)
order-3 (i find it always helps)
drain-3 (the quality of researches outweighs this)
cold-3 (capitalise on father of winters abilities)

build the 2-3 mallai druzinhas you can each turn and set them to guard comander on your god. get a mage to build n enchanted sheild for your god to protect him from missiles and increase hi already boosted (through cold power and water magic lvl) defence. early expansion will have to be slow due too lack of a populous army. in the event of a mictlan dual bless rush on the 6th turn with 20 jags you should have by then around 15 druzinhas and some archers bought from any surplus resources and some mages to hold your front.

your druzinhas should be able to hold off any force short of elephants long enough for your lord of winters aura of cold to kick in (note that it is stronger because of frosty dominion). the enemy units will soon become fatigued and unable to act allowing your remaining druzinhas (partially protected from cold) a chance to wipe them clear and with the added potency of archers andd mages you should have little problem forcing back even an army of 20 dual blessed jags.

after the first wave simply get back to slowly expanding and re-enforcing your defences. you should also think about making a fivefold angel and some of your very weak but stealthy sacreds. their mere presence increases unrest and the fivefold angel can instil uprisings making them tacticly very dangerous, simply sneak them onto the enemies capital and other castles and watch the army production grind to a halt and so preventing further waves of attack and leaving them defenceless as their armies fall to attrition.

indeed with bogarus it is true to say, the night is darkest just before the dawn as you will find that after the early game you can become 1 to fear as your druzinha production rises and enemy unit production withers.