MA Argatha - go punch a mountain

[analytic_kernel]

Originally Posted by Endoperez

That said, there's no reason not to use the SCALES portion, and the PRETENDERS portion is pretty awesome too. You don't have to change the spells if you don't want to, you can download the mod in separate parts.

Right on. CB Gods is quite nice.
Also, some of the things that I've read about changes to gem costs or number of effects for summons might incline me to try the spells portion someday as well. But, that's a portion where it would be nice to have manual or spell reference guide in the spirit of the Dom 3 manual (assuming there isn't already one out there).

However, I am certainly not going to criticize Baalz for not doing a vanilla-oriented guide. It just leaves room for someone else to write one. Your guides make interesting (and, often, thought-provoking) reading, Baalz - even for some of us who prefer to explore and formulate our own strats from scratch.

[JimMorrison]

Well bear in mind 1 thing though - 80% of the difference in a Vanilla nation guide and a CBM nation guide, is just in your pretender build. Most spells aren't changed all that drastically, and can be used interchangeably, but when a particular pretender is 75 points cheaper, or starts with an extra magic path, that will have a profound impact on the build, and on the strategy you can develop from it.

[Dragar]

I play mostly CBM and still refer to the manual all the time. Items and spells are the major things you look at in the manual, and not that much has changed, particularly items. Even in terms of spells, it is mostly just research level that has changed, not effect. And you pretty quickly get to know what the major level changes are

There would only be a few specific changes in CBM other than pretenders that could ever really render a strategy guide invalid, such as use of Carrion Woods and Call Lesser Horror. For the most part everything still applies in principle

[chrispedersen]

Cleveland/Snorre has an online guide that details the differences. It ROCKS!

[fungalreason]

Are you referring to the forging reference? Or is there one that has the rest of the changes too?

[Fantomen]

Originally Posted by Micah

I'm not sure if the treelord can blood hunt at all, it never seemed to work when I tried it, but that was a lot of patches ago.

The one with the blood path can hunt very well.

[Meglobob]

Originally Posted by Micah

Also, I wouldn't put money on iceclad vs mech men, since they'll fatigue out pretty quickly and their good prot will drop off. Caelum's troops are just too assy.

I was mixing them in with mammoths to absorb some of the 22AP damage the mechanical men are dealing out.

@Baalz

Size 6, 200 hp crushers eh..., for 8 earth gems per 1. Yea 3-6 at 24 - 48 E gems would stop the mammoths dead. So how about my mages doing mistform, summon air elementalx2 (the sz 6, trampling, etheral, flyers), thunder strikex2. The air elementals will fly over your crushers trampling mechanical men/mages and when they are killed they have 2nd/3rd forms etc... so will trample for several battle rounds. The have move 30 on the battlefield as well, so will trample at least 6 squires which is 18 mechanical men will face a trample attack, taking upto 20 hps damage each if successful. Caelum would after equip each A4 mage with 4A gems for the script.

The crushers would eventually go down to damage even with 200hps, not that good in combat or you would lose them all when your mages where killed/routed.

[Baalz]

[quote=Meglobob;684621]

Originally Posted by Micah

@Baalz

Size 6, 200 hp crushers eh..., for 8 earth gems per 1. Yea 3-6 at 24 - 48 E gems would stop the mammoths dead. So how about my mages doing mistform, summon air elemental (the sz 6, trampling, etheral, flyers), thunder strikex2. The air elementals will fly over your crushers trampling mechanical men/mages and when they are killed they have 2nd/3rd forms etc... so will trample for several battle rounds. The have move 30 on the battlefield as well, so will trample at least 6 squires which is 18 mechanical men will face a trample attack, taking upto 20 hps damage each if successful.

Well, the counters for air elementals would be very similar to ethereal mammoths (crushers, lighting immune marble oracles, evocation spells), I'm not sure how you'd get them to ignore the crushers unless you copy Bogus's scripts. Anyway, I'm sure a well played [any nation] can come up with something painful to do, I think I've made my point that a Caelum attack is far from a shutout.

[Amorphous]

Is there anyone besides me who likes to send out a reasonably kitted out Ancient Lord as early as possible?

With a 2h Sword of Sharpness, Black Steel Helmet and Plate he cannot take provinces on his own, but he does make expanding a lot safer and lessens the need for troops. He also does not care one bit about heavy armour or shields as he does 33AP with an attack of 13 when blessed.



Concerning adding nature to the Forge Lord, I think it more reasonable to just add N2. It takes care of all your crafting and summoning needs as a Thistle Mace in combination with the two rings get you to N5 without trouble and you can craft a cheap mace to make some independent mage take care of the site searching. It costs 66 points which you reasonably can pay for by one point of dominion and a scale (production perhaps?).

A nature bless seems far too costly, but if you are adamant, how about taking Drain 2? If I am not mistaken, the bless only helps your living sacreds, so it seems doable to delay the acquisition of statues a bit. You might then consider taking Heat instead of Cold, though.



As someone asked about non-CBM dominions, I hope that it is not out of bounds to add a few things about it.

I was inspired by the other thread about MA Agartha, so I was actually toying around with the nation and had settled on a Forge Lord for cheap Blood Stones as well and was trying something similar to what Baalz does here - though not as well, I readily admit - when his guide came up.

A lot of it can be used in vanilla, but I could not make astral work that well. It is very hard to acquire enough pearls to produce a reasonable amount of RoW; I needed to alchemize like crazy and that quite simply did not seem worth it. The difference in cost is huge between vanilla and CBM. What did work was skipping astral altogether on the pretender and instead add W2. It is cheaper, which is rather important as the Forge Lord is more expensive outside of CBM, and instead of RoW the pretender can produce Elemental Staffs. Getting the gems for them is easier and they work just as well for your Golemcrafters. Getting into astral - and to a lesser degree death - is very much harder, of course, but Golemcrafters with staffs can pick up the slack until you have gathered enough pearls to empower a mage in a worst case scenario.

[chrispedersen]

the reason not to go n2 instead of n4 is in your post. Its hard to get the astral necessary for ring of sorcery and ring of wizardry.

And n4 will benefit your sacred troops and casters - if they are going to die (due to disease), stick em in combat so they return to full hp.