Guide: LA Agartha - Armies of Darkness

[Zeldor]

Omnirizon:

TO dies to 1 hit from Flambeu. Even tartarian can get killed by 1 hit. Or 2 hits max [and well, boots of quickness and you have 2 hits before you can do anything].

I personally think that Order3 is a must for every nation on a reasonably sized map. I automatically make Order3 and then think what next. And gold is for Ktonian Necromancers, you want as much as possible with them. Of course you can try otherwise, but then you'd want magic1 scale to research with that cheaper mages.

[TheMenacer]

I don't think that order 3 is actually all that necessary. I mean yeah you're going to want to be raking in gold for Necromancers, but your armies are gonna be small by virtue of their high resource cost anyway, plus you're going to be making the switch to upkeep free summons as quickly as humanly possible to get away from just how little killing power every single one of your units has.

I've actually had quite a bit of luck with turmoil/luck because you need all the gems you can get your hands on and the gold events kept me in castles and necromancers until I had expanded enough to offset the turmoil scale and transitioned into just outright not bothering to buy anything except necromancers and indie mages with any degree of regularity.

[Zeldor]

I got to over 45 forts and 500+ mages with my build. Even got some forts free, despite misfortune 2. My biggest problem with turmoil/luck is that it's too random. And I don't like randomness too much. I am probably powergaming and playing on too big maps though

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by Zeldor

Omnirizon:

TO dies to 1 hit from Flambeu. Even tartarian can get killed by 1 hit. Or 2 hits max [and well, boots of quickness and you have 2 hits before you can do anything].

I personally think that Order3 is a must for every nation on a reasonably sized map. I automatically make Order3 and then think what next. And gold is for Ktonian Necromancers, you want as much as possible with them. Of course you can try otherwise, but then you'd want magic1 scale to research with that cheaper mages.

Not at all for Mictlan. First priority is a double bless.
After which, the expansion parties for mictlan are so cheap they swim in money, even with turmoil.

Similarly, Pangaeia and EA Arco can both escape without a O+3 scale. Although I agree generally 0+3 is de riquer.

[Omnirizon]

Originally Posted by Zeldor

I got to over 45 forts and 500+ mages with my build. Even got some forts free, despite misfortune 2. My biggest problem with turmoil/luck is that it's too random. And I don't like randomness too much. I am probably powergaming and playing on too big maps though

this makes a weird sort of sense in that building tons of forts helps offset the low map move and high resource by allowing a player to always keep their production centers on the front lines. It probably makes even more sense for big maps.

I for one despise big maps, but even for medium maps I think having lots of forts for agartha makes sense. I am typically a fort building-minimalist, and prefer to make a few strategic placements. But I might reevaulate that strategy in light of Agartha.

[Agema]

I think nations with high-resource units can skip high Order because they hit res limitations long before gold, although many might prefer Order anyway to maximise castle building.

[Zeldor]

Resource heavy nations suck. Using productivity will be usually a waste of points, event with most of resource heavy nations. You can usually find somethign that does not eat so much of them and focus on it. Sloth3 and Prod2-3 is 200 points difference. Awake SC is a way better investment. You need to conquer provs around cap to get solid resource boost. And you can't take them fast enough without awake SC. You are few turns behind if you wait till you get enough resources to produce enough troops to conquer surrounding provs. It all depends on the nation though. Some high res troops don't need bigger numbers and you can go with some productivity and dormant SC. But it's usually only because you have no other troop to expand with, not because they are so good. Agartha has cave knights. They are way better at conquering any indies you can meet. And they are upkeep-free later.

[13lackGu4rd]

Warning: major thread necro.

now, with that out of the way, I really feel that this guide needs some love. LA Agartha is considered as the "good" Agartha, but it still has gaping weaknesses and is not seeing play too often, not to mention success. I think that EDM really helped the nation by providing non undead thug/SC options, especially the Granite Cyclops which all F random Ktonian Necromancers can summon.

I'm pretty sure that you've already changed your mind about SC pretenders by now, so I'll just add that an awake SC pretender won't help LA Agartha at all. as you said, expansion is easy enough with groups of 5 Cave Knights, and that a naked SC pretender won't stop a good bless rush(which LA has plenty of). also the Risen Oracle is overrated, sure it's immortal, but naked it can't kill a fly with its quarterstaff. the other SCs are not that much better, like the Cyclops and his fist, which is even worst than the quarterstaff. also, none of the const0-2 weapons will make these SCs kill fast enough, and even if rushing const4, by the time you'll get there the rush will have materialized already and you'll be screwed. not to mention that most SCs beg for some alt research first.

instead, due to all your mages having at least D1, enchantment seems like the obvious go to path early on. animate skeletons/dead is only enchantment 1, which you should be easily able to complete before any rush materializes against you. if the rush takes a bit longer than you'll likely have a handful of Ktonian Necromancers and enchantment 3, which makes for heavier skelli spam. this early no bless rush should be able to handle dedicated skelli spam, so you should be safe with that.

so, now that we don't need an awake SC to expand, and it won't help us anyway against a rush, there are 3 options. the first is a rainbow, which will fulfill all the magic diversity issues we got. it can also jump start our research if we take it awake. the second is an S9 Oracle or something and max scales, not ideal for Agartha but still very doable, and if your cap is surrounded by 4-5 provinces your expansion will be supercharged with production scales and Cave Knights. than you can follow them up with crossbowmen to handle bless rushes like jags, woodsmen, etc. the third option is to utilize your various SCs and go for the Forge Lord. super cheap items, pretty cheap and very plentiful SCs, maximizing your strength all the way.

scales obviously depend on which pretender choice you go for, but assuming an awake rainbow/dormant Forge Lord with a lot of magic, you won't have too many points to play with. I really like O1L3 on nations like LA Agartha. on the 1 hand you need money for forts, as you don't have cap only mages or troops at all, so the more forts the better. on the other hand your troops are pretty abysmal so you need summons and battlefield magic, which means a lot of gems from very early on. S3 is pretty obvious unless going for a heavy scales build. the other scales are not as straight forward. your mages are old so taking death is always a risk, death magic on your old mages helps, but you will still lose some to old age. growth is always nice if you can afford it, but in a tight build you probably won't. your troops(especially Cave Knights) are cold blooded, on the other hand your go-to troops are undeads, some of which have a chill aura. cold1 is pretty safe even for the Cave Knight expansion, not sure if cold3 hurts them too much to destroy your early expansion or whether it's still playable. my main worries are the tougher indies, barbs and heavy cavs, as the Cave Knights don't kill as fast, they generally outlast the indies until they inevitably route, so adding too much extra fatigue might mean your Cave Drakes will be dead before the indies route. magic vs drain is also not as straight forward. you can easily afford drain 2 as you said in your original guide, but if going for L3 and some death than M1, or is it only M3, opens up those nice death gem events, which are your most important gems. if you really need the points than maybe O3Misf1/2D2, but I'd generally ease your pretender a bit before going there, as I feel that Agartha really needs all the gems it can get its hands on, and unless the map is huge O3 won't pay that big a role seeing that your expansion armies are small and not too upkeep intensive(due to their small size), almost like bless nations just without the sacred discount. still, Turmoil is probably not good, as you still want to start buying Ktonian Necromancers pretty fast, rather than stay too long with the apprentices.

I'd also not really dismiss your national undead summons(both in ench and conj), sure they aren't that great and usually come with some afflictions(no biggie as they're expendable), especially those that cost E gems instead of D. in CBM 1.6 you can still get a huge amount of hammers with all those E gems of yours, in 1.7 that's gone so you need alternative sink holes, these undeads might very well be it. think of it as poor man's MA Ermor/LA C'tis mass reanimations. enough numbers of these weak undeads make for terrific chaff, especially if you took C3, and mix in perfectly with your undead strategy(Rigor+Darkness, Umbrals, TOs, etc).

overall, LA Agartha, while being the "good Agartha" is still pretty much a 1 trick undead pony, which EDM helps fix somewhat. knowing your enemies, planning ahead of time and maintaining tempo seem like the most crucial elements for success with such nations.

[TheMenacer]

I definitely agree that the Oracle pretender is sort of useless. You don't need him for early expansion and he's not gonna scare away a determined rush, at least not for long enough to make a difference. I personally like going with the Lord of Rebirth. The splash of nature magic makes a huge difference once you hit the midgame.

The real key to Agartha as I see it isn't the national summons at all, as sweet as they are, but rather the ability to summon Lamia Queens to jack up your magical diversity like crazy. They're reasonably cheap, they use nature gems which you aren't really going to be using in the first place, and are easily summonable by a Lord of Rebirth. These guys will get you access to water, which is handy of course, more nature magic, more death in case you were worried about that, and most importantly, a splash of blood for blood stones. Not only that, but a handful of nature boosters on your Lord of Rebirth will get you Fairy Courts later on, just in case you'd felt like getting a bit of air magic. Granted, that's not gonna happen til late-midgame, but it's always nice to have.

In the meanwhile, your necromancers should be replacing your crossbows with skeleton archers and of course Umbrals are still absolute monsters no matter what research level they're at. Water gets you naiad warriors which perform fairly well against normal troops and use water gems which you aren't really using anyway. Tomb Oracles make handy SCs, but I prefer to keep them casting spells, small groups of thugs to mess up armies supported by Tomb Oracles spamming disintegrate to keep the usual thug counters off them is tricky to beat, especially when TOs have enough HP to live through the usual counters to groups of mages like rain of stones or earthquake, particularly with a small nature bless.

All this said, it still doesn't patch up your early game vulnerability. Rushing conjuration to get all that awesome midgame stuff means that you're not rushing evocation or enchantment to allow your necromancers to hold off early attackers. I suppose the only thing to do is to fly under the radar and buddy up to your neighbors. The durability of your cave knights ensures that you'll be pretty obnoxious to take by anyone who isn't really dedicated to rushing you, but it's hardly something to rely on. The build I usually go for is a Lord of Rebirth with E4/D4/N4, a splash of order and growth for castles, luck for gems, and cold to make the battlefield as unpleasant as possible. Like I said, it's not gonna hold off a rush, but I think the thing to do isn't to weaken your overall game plan in the hopes of patching up your one weakness, particularly when, assuming you get out of the early game, it patches itself.