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I am an unclickable option.

I am also that.

[E. Albright]

In regards to the latest battle in Sulphur Springs, let me simply say: ouch.

[Il Palazzo]

In regards to the latest battle in Sulphur Springs, let me simply say: ouch.

Oh, come on. SCs don't work anymore against anything more than pd and some basic armies. That was a waste of gems. Next time you're going to throw all that resources away, give them to charity.
(Niefelheim's Elderly Soulless Care - call: 999-666-NIEFEL)

Of Course you'd say that you're third...

I for one am not afraid to admit that I'm the leading force in the game. Markatas and deep ones alike tremble at the sound of Dogmeat's name. I'm the best. I rule. There, now you know the truth.

[E. Albright]

It wasn't a total waste; before meeting his grim fate, he recaptured 2-3 provinces and weathered 5-7 mind hunts...

[Not to say all those gems couldn't have been put to better use, obviously. In fact, had he been engaged in proper thuggery rather than entertaining foolhardy notions of supercombatanthood, his end could likely have been averted. Alas, hindsight, hindsight...]

[slMagnvox]

Gifts from Heaven is a particularly deadly spell.  When it manages to actually hit its intended target.  I laughed when it landed right on your Deep One's face.

Speaking of unwavering Non aggression pacts, is there any Atlantis vs Neifelheim combat my scouts haven't discovered?

[E. Albright]

We've had a border clash or two, and they took one of my forts, if that's what you're asking. In fact, we fought just this last turn.

(I'm inclined to wonder if GfH's abysmal accuracy was helped along by my brilliant decision to stick my Basalt King in the absolute corner; i.e., where there was that many less squares for the meteors to deviate into. It also could just be my exquisite luck.)

[Il Palazzo]

I've got a few questions:
1. Mind hunt - the spell description isn't exhaustive enough, for one, how does that "astral cord which can be severed"(or somesuch) exactly works?
2. Is there a way of protecting your troops from "gifts from heaven"?
3. Is there an item which increases map movement speed?

[E. Albright]

• Per the wiki, there's a 40% chance per level of the highest-level for hostile astral mages in the target province to detect and (irresistibly) feeblemind you. Per experience, the feeblemind check happens before the target makes its resistance roll, so a level 3 astral mage will completely and painfully protect any province they reside in.
• Keep them spread out and make burnt offerings to Are'enn'gee. If one goes in for the dramatic, darkness or blinding potential casters would also help. Or for the extremely proactive, go for the universal solution and just kill potential casters (magic duel is obviously a good choice to pick the buggers out if your caster's got the goods, or you've got expendable casters and pearls).
• For a commander, Winged Shoes or the Boots of the Planes. For armies, Flying Carpets or the Gate Stone.

[edit: curiosity inspired quick experimentation, which led to the conclusion that each astral mage gets to try to feeblemind all attackers, not just the highest-level one. This means that 3 level ones are about as good as 1 level two, and once you get up to 6 level ones, it's effectively almost as good as a level three.]

[Il Palazzo]

I was hoping there was a non-unique item that simply increased map movement by a couple points. Oh well.
As for the gifts from heaven - body etheral and luck should still work, right? How about high defence stat? Can one dodge the stuff?

[E. Albright]

I don't think defense helps, and ethereal probably doesn't since it's a spell. Lucky, though, probably would.

[Il Palazzo]

Ho hum! Epic battles abound, suicidal charges and cowardly retreats! Enemy at the gates, tensions between allies arise, many heroes die and some live(i.e.Dag & Frode). Tales of forbidden love and broken hearts, magic items lost and found, innocent virgins harvested and slaughtered for the greater glory of God! Indeed, it's interesting times we're all living in.
-Angerboda's response to Tjatse's question: "Wazzup?"

[Kagus]

Spoiler: Yo. (click to show/hide)

I really don't know what it is about Agartha...  If it's just because they're an original idea so far removed from the commonplace orcs and elves, or if it's the heavy backstory and theme applied to the nation, or if there really is just something innately attractive about olms weaker nations.  Whatever the case, I do very much like playing as them.

So much so, in fact, that I keep trying out new strategies on them.  The imprisoned olm water/earth bless strategy is going so-so, the ignore-Agarthan-troops-completely-and-pretend-you're-Ermor ghost king SC is falling flat on its face, and the forge lord minor bless ended up being a little lackluster as well.

Well, time for something new then.

I just tried out something a teensy bit different...  I happened upon a guide for EA Agartha that talked about the Ancient Lord thugging capability.  The guide was, however, written by HoneyBadger, a person whose advice I would not rank very highly...  But it did get me thinking.

Enter Alahrim, the Risen Oracle.  9 Earth 4 Death, 3Turmoil/3Sloth/3heat/3Death/3luck/3Magic, Dominion score of 9.

This gives me a helpful bless, while also giving me an awake SC.  Who's immortal.  With awe.  And +4 fear.  And 10 base protection thanks to the 9 earth.

While he was off spooking indies with his fear/awe combo and hand of death castings (he's still an Agarthan, so hitting people isn't one of his strong points), I sent off a couple ancient lords with the starting army, supplemented by a few trogs.

I've never expanded so fast.  With anyone.


Agartha has got some rather interesting capabilities...  For starters, they love castles.  They love them so much, they work extra-special-hard to take them away from other people, and get a siege bonus.  Second, Agarthans don't need to eat (I was always a little confused by that one, personally), so they can sit behind a castle wall for as long as they need.  And the heat/death/high dom combo will shred the available supplies for any sieging army.

This brings me to the Agarthan special castle, the Cave Fort.  I read somewhere that cave fort sieges will be fought under the effects of a darkness spell.  I also read that this was on the bug list, for some reason.

I've never experienced it firsthand, but it seems perfectly reasonable that a subterranean fort would have the effects of a darkness spell going.  It would also make it absolutely perfect for Agarthans, since they all have 100% darkvision, and the darkness would make everyone else suffer in the exact areas that the Agarthans are so commonly associated with (attack and defense).

Cave forts are still very expensive and time-consuming for what they do, of course...  But with the rest of the Agarthan aspects, it would make for a defensive bastion that almost any enemy would struggle severely with trying to remove.


As for the scales, I think they're actually pretty good, considering the strategy...  Death is almost a necessity, and with it you are dooming yourself to a late game fraught with low income.  This is further compounded by sloth 3 and turmoil 3.  However, since you won't be making large numbers of troops with a thug strategy anyways, and trogs only cost a single point each, sloth doesn't hurt as much as it might seem.  Turmoil hurts, of course, but it also provides that delightful synergy with Luck.  The fun thing about luck is that it can still provide you with a high (albeit inconsistent) income regardless of how many people you can tax.  And if there's still a magic + luck synergy, then you'll still be able to find those 3000 gold treasures amongst all the dead civilians.  Whereas order will only help you early on, when you still have a few people standing.

Furthermore, gems can be turned into emergency funds, and Agartha is primed for earth gem incomes, not to mention a reasonable access to fire.  You'll generally have better things to spend gems on than cash, but it's still a consideration.


Also, the risen oracle is both thematic and awesome...  Which is always nice.

[EuchreJack]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

How about an air/water bless?  Air gets you air shields, and water precision.  But, if you're gonna try to boost the lousy precision of Agartha troops, you best go all the way.

Or, maybe fire instead of water, and boost attack?  Who needs ranged units when your pretender can forge staffs of storms?  Agartha's units are strong, and the sacred ranged units only hurl boulders, and that's only in the Early era.

One idea I've rarely seen mentioned is giving SC/thugs winged boots.  Once your warriors get into melee, those ranged units do more harm to their own troops than your thugs...he he he.

[E. Albright]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Water is actually defense/quickness, not precision. The only innate precision boost you can get is from levels of air magic; o/w, it's spells (Aim, Eagle Eye, or Wind Guide) or nothing.

[Kagus]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Air shield is of course always nice, particularly when your troops have such lousy shields.  However, a high earth bless will provide +4 points of protection to the armor of a unit (I've actually seen evidence recently that it provides +6 points, not +4...  Not sure where that's coming from though), and that will help ignore most of the projectiles that do get through.  Also, the reinvigoration helps to mitigate the +2 encumbrance that sometimes occurs when taking such a heavy heat scale.  And mages are always thankful for a little extra boost (speaking of which, the earth bless will provide a bonus to any bracers of defense or black steel helmets you put on your mages).

And a fire bless of some level is also very nice for Agartha, as it allows them to actually hit things once in a while.  And with their strength, they can really put some push behind those spears when they do connect.  I've also tried a heavy water bless, which helps mitigate their lackluster defense skill and gives them two shots at hitting stuff.  And with their infamous skill, they need all the tries they can get.

But you see, taking the risen oracle also grants me with an immortal, undead supercombatant.  And because of the price of the oracle and bumping his inherent skills up to bless level, it also allows me to take a couple good scales with dominion 9, thus allowing the already nice supercombatant to make use of an awesome presence.  And since he was already scary to begin with, his minor death bless allows him to rank in at a handsome +4 fear factor.  I equipped him with a horror helmet at one point, thus giving him a more respectable +9, but then he had a rather unfortunate run-in with some rampaging troglodytes...  Ah, the joy of having an immortal pretender.

Speaking of the minor death bless, I just recently ran into one of those wizard provinces.  You know, lots of slingers and militia, two wizards in the back and an armored war minotaur.  They pop up now and again.

Well, during the course of the battle a recently-recruited ancient lord happened to find himself near the minotaur while it was trying to take a whack at some of my troops.  The lord, who had been blessed recently, walked straight up to the bovine monstrosity and gave it a good chop with his standard-issue battleaxe.

...and promptly hacked off the minotaur's left arm.  Never underestimate the power of a good death bless...  Or a good axe, for that matter.


Expansion has slowed a touch, as I happen to find myself in a rather blocky section of land that inhibits movement severely.  The location of the capitol is a delightful little pass in the mountain range, I couldn't have hoped for a more thematic settlement, but the surrounding areas, well...   It's all rather difficult to navigate.

It's the start of year 3, and I've got I think five castles, with another on the way.  I don't think I've ever had that many castles in any game.  Yes, I'm new to this, gimme a break.

I'm also rolling in a significant income from my (semi-)rapid expansion and the various random events that occur.  Getting a couple hyper-efficient tax collections coinciding with the opening of a few new gold mines and the grand opening of a merchant's square is always fun.  I'm still waiting on one of those super treasure events though...  Lovely stuff.

EDIT:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Putting this all in action, I ended up on a random map against Caelum.  Early on was a bit slow for me, expansion wasn't all it could have been and there's a total of four forest provinces on the entire map, two of which are controlled by the enemy, and a third which is directly adjacent to my capitol (so castling was slow to take off, and with a thug build you really need your castles).  Still though, I was fighting Caelum with a blood fountain pretender...  I wasn't exactly competing against the expansion kings.

It's midway into the third summer, and things are looking alright.  Caelum keeps dropping call of the winds on my provinces and it's a chore to bring in a clean-up crew whenever they manage to get lucky and bust the PD.  However, my risen oracle is kicking more arse-analog than ever before, even though much of it hasn't been feathered (keeping him out of the enemy dominion.  Safety reasons).

My main army took a couple hits, thanks in part to some moronic boulder-throwers and the fact that I was fighting in their dominion (slightly lower morale, but more importantly it was cold.  Little scary right there), but now I've got a nice little force sitting around waiting for a dominion push so they can waltz on over to the second castle they've got.  I've blocked off their land access to the rest of my provinces, which really shouldn't be that big of a deal, since they're Caelum, but the AI insists on moving like a land force.

Probably because it also insists on having 90% of its armies made up of lion tribe archers.  Crazy people.


The only thing I'm worried about is research...  I'm a little bit ahead, but I'm running out of stuff to research (level 4 cap) and they've been keeping pace with me for some time.  Eventually, they'll be able to bypass my abilities and get into the nastier stuff.  If they happen to reach orb lightning, I'm going to have a string of very bad days...

Still though, they're down to their last four provinces, and I've got around six castles spitting out mages and thugs to the tune of 1300 natural income a turn.  Also, I think Death 3 has been fiddling with my Luck scale, as a couple necromancers have shown up out of the blue and sworn themselves and their minions over to me...   Plus there was this rich prince who happened to be passing by and died of the plague while in my lands.  That meant 1500 gold, a barkskin amulet and a cat charm, all for me.

My gem income is also a bit fancy.  Rolling in double-digits on fire, earth and death (maybe water too, haven't checked), plus some lesser values in everything else except blood.  I really don't think Caelum has a chance, even with a higher magic level.  I mean, I've even got national troops who can whup their little birdies, and I'm Agartha for chrissakes!

It's really just a matter of whether or not I can take them out before the demo ends...  Not likely.

Spoiler: Addendum (click to show/hide)

It interests me just how much potential this game has for storytelling...  I've been thinking about it a lot lately, coming up with various twists and turns one could take with the tools at your disposal...  Especially now, what with the recent revelation that you can fiddle around with the battle screen.  Shift-U will allow you to place a unit on the battlefield, and there's another command to kill everything in a square.

The actual battles are already pre-determined, of course, so this has no real effect on a battle.  Still though, it's fun to spawn Kurgi in the midst of some indies and watch what he does to the poor souls.


Speaking of which, I ended up swarming one battle with risen horrors (also hoburg militia, but they just ran for the hills the instant I made them).  After the 12 or so beasties had slaughtered the indie forces, they decided to turn back the other way and see how tasty my guys were.

Or guy, singular, as the case may be.  I was taking it over with my risen oracle.

You know you've got a pretty good SC when he can singlehandedly provide most of your expansion without any items or spells...  But you know you've got a DAMN good SC when he can take on a lesser horror gangbang and WIN.  He didn't even get especially hurt, just horror marked.  All he was carrying was a scepter of authority (I was trying to boost his awe), a gold shield (thank you luck scale!  This succeeded in boosting awe, but awe is pointless against horrors), some behemoth boots, and a pair of defensive bracers.  And with that, he managed to fight down 12 horrors to the death.  He even got simultaneously swarmed by 8 of them at one time, barely even got scratched.

[E. Albright]

Eep! Had some technical difficulties. Like, my comp died messily. I surgically extracted its hard disk and can for the moment continue the game, but my stopgap solution may at some point become untenable. Ye have been warned.