Getting the max out of MA Agartha

[Meglobob]

Ma Agartha is actually a very strong middle - late game nation, sadly its early game sucks big time and totally lacks variety in what it can recruit via its national troops.

The reason its such a strong nation middle to late game is the golem cult (extra hps for gargoyles, golems, living statues, iron dragons etc), gift of reasoned summon umbrals and marble oracles. Plus it can spam earthquake and magma eruption very easily I believe. Forge of Ancients and Earth Deep Blood Well are just a matter of time for this nation. Oh yea, you have access to one of the best pretender chassis in the entire game, Risen Oracle.

Check out the nation guides, I believe alot was written about this nation a while back.

[chrispedersen]

Just be aware CBM nerfs Agartha pretty hard, boosting the summoning level of Umbrals up, and making Risen Oracle more expensive.

[statttis]

CBM also gives Agartha a slight indirect boost by moving the trample boots to construction 0. With the starting 5E gem income, they can have a trampling SC god on turn 2.

[chrispedersen]

Sorta like saying but "hey I got high test gas" when the boat is sinking. The increase in the risen oracle cost is pretty much a guaranteed scale hit - which will last you the entire game.

All nations get the boot advantage. The boots are advantageous only to 2-3 possible pretender constructions, and you may be better off if you want trampling going with an earth mother anyway.

Using the boots to expand with any other chassis than a cyclops is probably a risky move, and I don't think it materially helps the cyclops.

You'd probably be better of taking a phoenix and forgetting the footwear.

[Jazzepi]

I messed around with MA Argatha and came up with this build. There's plenty of room for tweaking or adding paths to the pretender if there's something specific you want to forge.


Dom 8
Forge Lord
F2
E4
B4

O3
P3
H3
G2
Misfortune2
Magic1

In retrospect I would probably cut out the H3, and drop the Dom to 6 for better scales. You can't really afford to send your already heavy encumbrance troops into battle with even more encumbrance. They have enough trouble hitting the enemy as it is, no need to make that any worse.

The main point of this build would to be to turn the forge lord discount + dwarven hammer into an endless supply of extremely cheap blood stones. You can just blood hunt your capital if you want, or trade for blood slaves. Each earth stone only costs 3 slaves off your forge lord. I would use him for almost nothing besides sitting at home and forging which then in turn get put into an army of statutes. You can also use the E4 bless to goo effect on all of your mages, and even thug out with the giant E3 mages by giving them a frost brand and a shield.

Jazzepi

[Endoperez]

Ancient Lords are size 4 sacreds with foot slots. Unfortunately, they can't bless themselves so you can't use them effectively in the early game, and they aren't that good even with Boots of Behemoth.

Fire Bolas will work fine once you get some Fire gems, but then you might rather recruit the Oracles.

6 or so Ancient Ones with e9n6 bless surprisingly conquered 6 provinces. They were lead by a prophet Ancient Lord and never got a hit in before the enemy was fatigued out, but they fared surprisingly well. I don't believe they'd be worth that bless, although EA Agartha might (they'd have the same problem with getting a hit in, but sacred commanders+thugs at every fort).

Legions of Steel, high hp + low-level N bless felt like it could make the troops useful, but each LoS would take an Earth gem or a cap-only Oracle, and in my test the mage cast it on himself rather than the troops.

[Meglobob]

One of the things about both Ea/Ma Agartha that I would like to see, would be some free points from heat scale. You are wise to take heat 1 anyway because of your troops being cold blooded, so I think making the nation a heat 2 or 1 nation would be help them both out alot, without effecting the balance of the game.

[atul]

E/N bless is somewhat useless for MA Agartha as their statues won't benefit from most of it (lifeless, enc 0, no armour). At least I felt that non-human non-mages are not-to-be-used on those guys when I played with them in Perpetuality with some success.

Except in special cases like when casting Darkness.

[Dragar]

I think jazeppi is closest to the mark. They have an amazing thirst for earth and the statues have great patrol bonuses, so it makes sense to have a bit of a blood focus and crank out a lot of bloodstones.

It seems a waste not to throw a decent bless on those statues though, I'd be inclined to hit an F9 and high dominion, if you aren't going to leverage your statues not much point going ma agartha.

Dormant forge lord, Dom 9
F9 E2 B4
Turmoil 3
Sloth 3
Growth 1
Luck 3
magic 1

Your sacreds recruitable won't last any longer but will pack a very heavy punch, and your statues will be nasty - and having a magic weapon is pretty important


I still don't see it as being too viable though to be honest, with poor mobility, no fire/cold/shock res, it is too easy to take them down, and they will onyl be really strong in your dominion

[chrispedersen]

I thought much along the same lines - I took a N4 bless just for the forge access. I *think* I took F4 for the +2 to hit, but as the seal guards have magic, it was not necessary to go to f9. One quick booster would allow gift of health.

I believe I used death scales.

At the start, with EA agartha you can choose to which mages to recruit - recruiting the death type cut down afflictions.

I realize ma and ea are different animals but perhaps some caries over.