Getting the max out of MA Agartha

[Endoperez]

Agarthan "elites" have low Attack rating as well as precision, and only the [b}former[/b] affects melee. It's not as low as their precision, and there's no double-effect of low base attack further lowered by low defence. They can hit a barn, just not most shielded humans, and their big size makes it impossible to swarm.

[Revolution]

I'm a big fan of the risen oracle...in my mp game as MA agartha I went with a 10 dominion risen oracle with 2e 6d. On the first turn have him forge black steel plate and he will go clean out most indies placed in the back of the map and set to hold hold attack (the armor is only necessary until he can self buff). That's a pretty much guaranteed 1 province/turn on top of whatever your epically sucky national troops manage to conquer (stick to the human infantry and build castles where you find decent indies)

In the mid-late game having the high dominion will aid the golem cult...more dominion, more hp for your golems/statues. Blade wind is decent early on but where your recruitable everywhere mages really shine is evo 6 where they can summon earthpower and magma eruption to their hearts content...pretty serious firepower. I ended up getting taken to town in my game as MA agartha by about turn 50 but it was a good learning experience.

[Baalz]

The mistake to MA Argatha is to think their troops are those crappy things on their roster. Yeah, they blow and there's not really any way to get around that. Good news though is that their national summons are very good and you can get them early enough to help with indie expansion and your first war. *Those* are your troops, and they're effective in small enough numbers that they can be your mainline troops much of the time. Your mages (properly leveraged) are also very good combat mages. True, you're gonna struggle in the very early game before any research is done, but if you're clever you should have a very tough army right around the time all the indies are snapped up and a good chance to roll over one of your faster expanding neighbors before his larger size can really be leveraged. Those dominion boosted golems are pretty viscous against light enemy mage action, and the golem crafters scale up very nicely as research progresses - not to mention the higher level summons like umbrals and marble oracles. The very early game is *very* tough, but you have a pretty wicked power curve from that point.

Those golem crafters I think are mages which you have to have a little bit of vision to really appreciate. As configured by default, they're fairly meh. Once you really appreciate their strengths though watch out!

Maybe I'll write a guide this weekend.

[chrispedersen]

I may be forgetting but someone recommended eyes of aiming....
For the single eyed, this is not a good option...

[Quitti]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

I may be forgetting but someone recommended eyes of aiming....
For the single eyed, this is not a good option...

True, but still the golem crafters do have two eyes, I suppose. Being humans and all.

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by Quitti

True, but still the golem crafters do have two eyes, I suppose. Being humans and all.

And yet, don't have the same Precision problems that the Agarthans themselves do.

Personally I think the Golem Cult is a weak mechanic, when coupled with the fact that all of your summons are Lifeless.

From my experience, MA Agartha is a perfect turtle nation, and can develop into a late game juggernaut with a fairly mediocre number of provinces, good diplomacy, and a bit of patience.

I'm always wary of the Awake SC, and with useful Sacreds (yes, cap only, and they have serious drawbacks, but they -are- useful), as well as Sacred mages, a minimal magic SC with nothing going for it is going to sacrifice later game potential for only a few more provinces than your recruitables could have gotten, had you given them at least a little bit of a Bless.

I think if I were to go Awake, I'd want some Blood, so after some fast expansion, could push straight into a strong Blood Stone economy - no one is hungrier for Earth gems than MA Agartha.

Looking at them again, now, I think Agartha is very enigmatic. They actually have numerous ways to approach, and none of them are especially thrilling, unless perhaps they cater directly to your specific playstyle. Few nations have such narrow appeal, it seems.

[vfb]

But but but ... the Risen Oracle is cool! You can try something like this:

Risen Oracle (Body 1581, 95 hits)
Magic: Earth 4 Death 5
Dominion 9
Scales: Order 3 Sloth 3 Heat 2 Growth 1 Misfortune 2 Magic 1
Awake

Maybe Heat-3 Mis-1 instead, if you're not in a game with fire-resistant nations.

He's immortal, high HP, with awe and fear+5, and amphibious to boot. E4 Bless is nice for all the mages and ancient lord thugs, and D5 afflictions bonus is not a total waste.

Death-5 is also good since otherwise you're stuck with D1, and maybe D2 (~2% chance).

[Radio_Star]

I played around with MA Ag a bit trying to make a guide, and while I failed horribly, I found certain things. Golem crafters, as has been pointed out, definitely don't get enough love. As far as mages go, they've got some fairly unique and useful paths and are dirt cheap to recruit and maintain. They, almost more than your national summons, are what makes this nation tick. I was actually playing around with starting a high dom PoD since you've got good synergy with death given your national dark vision and between awe, which benefits your golems through dom, and fear on the PoD, you get decent initial firepower to grab turf. It's probably not ideal since a death blessing doesn't benefit you much, but I found it worthwhile to supplement your pitiful national troops with death goodies.

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by vfb

But but but ... the Risen Oracle is cool! You can try something like this: ...

Oh the Risen Oracle is a neat character, don't get me wrong. But with that build, your magic capacity, before Empowerment and boosters, looks like: F1/W1/E4/D5

That's really, really, really awfully sad.

And again, especially since you're likely confining him to actions within your Dominion, you can't really expect much more from him than you'd get from an N4 on your sacreds.

[vfb]

Nah, he's perfectly capable of playing outside positive dominion, especially when you get a little Alt. Since you're giving him gear, you don't want him dying anyway. The immortality is still nice for emergencies (very nice if you've got an army sitting on your capitol, head out every single turn and cast something nasty), and for removing afflictions.

D5 will give you astral through Spectral mages, MA has enough tribal indies to get you into nature, and at Const-6 you get boosted to W2. But you're right, this build is pretty much your Oracle for initial expansion, then mainly statues etc for the rest of the game. Boring!

I just hate the Ancient Ones: size 4, attack 9, a lousy spear and a buckler, and cold-blooded to boot.