Arcoscephale is together with Pythium the first nation conceived in the creation of Dominions. After having played GMT's Great Battles of Alexander and S.P.Q.R. I got fascinated by ancient warfare, and the hoplites were among the first units to appear in Dominions. At first the two nations were one, with a troop rooster of ancient units, while Man and later on Ulm had troop roosters with a more medieval touch. Soon, however, it became clear that Pythium and Arcoscephale should be two distinct nations. Arcoscephale is heavily influenced by ancient Greek city states and Hellas. The Golden Age is influenced by the mythical past and the archaic age. Later ages boast Hellenic and Mesopotamian influences: elephants, mysteries and Chaldean astrologers. - Illwinter

Arcoscephale is an old kingdom. Although its glory days are long past, the ancient Astrologers who aided past kings in building Arcoscephale into a mighty empire have recently emerged from their centuries-old seclusion, to restore the Old Kingdom to world domination once more. Priestesses with great knowledge of healing are trained in ancient temples built during the peak of the Old Kingdom. The priestesses are able to scry upon enemy troops and provinces that are located within the God’s Dominion. The war machine of ancient Arcoscephale has not changed over the past centuries. Cumbersome plate hauberks and long spears are still used and the cavalry is primitive. Elephants and chariots, unpredictable but devastating, are still popular.

MA Arcoscephale is a nation with formation fighter units and mages that make use of communions to improve their combat casting. They also have access to tramplers in their unit roster. The Arcoscephale dominion gives you a better understanding of the composition of enemy armies.

Race	Military	Magic Access	Priests	Buildings
Average Humans	Early Phalanx (Heavy Infantry) Chariots Elephants Sacred Hoplites	4 (Rare 5) 1 (uncommon 2)¹ 1 (uncommon 2)¹ 1 (uncommon 2)¹ 1 Heroes: 3, 1 Summons: 3 (requires 4) 121 (requires 3)² 11 (requires 2)²	Average (2) Healers Dominion Scouts its provinces.	Castles Labs cost 250

Your Astrologers have one 100% and one 10% random, giving each one a 27.5% (11/40) chance of having 4 & a 0.625% (1/160) chance of having 5.
¹Your Mystics have one 100% random, but they also have 50% randoms for Fire, Water, and Earth; for example, each one has a 75% (3/4) chance of having 1, a 50% (1/8 + 1/8 + 1/4 = 1/2) chance of having 11, a 12.5% (1/8) chance of having 2, and a 6.25% (1/16) chance of having 21. You're technically not guaranteed to have Fire, Water, or Earth on a Mage, but the odds of having at least one level are decent.
²The Summons are not Commanders, so their paths are revealed with Gift of Reason (4) or Divine Name (5).

Monster Boar Conjure 5, 3 10, ( Monster Boarx1) an annoyance spell. forces the enemy to send forces to their money-making province to stop the unrest the boar is producing.

Procession of the Underworld Conjure 5, 3 13, (summon 12 Lampad) Can't nativly cast. Get alot of them for thier price. A nicie anti-thugging unit that inficts decay. If Gift of Reasoned they add 121 to your communions.

Summon Hound of Twilight Conjure 5, 21 4, (summon a Hound of Twilight) Can't nativly cast. Decent patroler and Spirit-sight can catch elves.

Bind Keres Conjure 6, 2 12, (summon 3 Ker) Can't natively cast. Summon hard to hit flyers that can paralyze the undead. Can be effective in conjunction with your flying units late game as many nations will have undead mages. If Gift of Reasoned they add 11. Not look like much but you can still get useful spells and gear with only a 1 (do need to collect slaves and you can empower).

Craft Keledone Construction 7, 22 5, (summon 1 Keledone) Situational, Summon a Hard to kill immobile communion slave in case a fort gets besieged.

Forge Brass Bull Construction 7, 33 30, (summon a Khalkotauros) A high prot trampler.

Awaken Hamadryad Enchantment 5, 4 25, (summon 1 Hamadryad) Can't natively cast. A immobile 3 mage. Sutuational as a defence implacment, But better in this MA as a Nature ritualist and crafter if you can't get your 3 hero. only need to empower a Hiereia once and make a Thisle Mace.

Sow Dragon Teeth Enchantment 6, 2 1, (summon 10 Spartae during Combat) A Decent in battle troop summon. Can get the same amount of value as a full sized earth elemental without going too deep into Conjuration.

What magic path/mages define your nation, what can you level, e.g., thunderstriking, astral, elementals, earth buffs, blood, what is recruitable anywhere and good, what are some summons you are likely able to get and are useable

The Old Kingdom makes Arcoscephale's name as a Communion nation, with high Astral and rather-thin power elsewhere. Depth is hardly an issue in battle for Communion nations, thanks to the path boosting, but it's the name of the game outside of battle. Arcoscephale's Mystics can provide a little depth in Fire, Water, & Earth, but they're not very consistent in that respect. Handle your 2's, 2's, and 2's with care.

4 is remarkably common and cheap, thanks to your Astrologers, allowing you to terrorize non-Astral nations with Mind Hunt (Evocation 6) and ensnare unprepared thugs with Enslave Mind (Thaumaturgy 6). You can also use your Level 4 guys to buff your Human soldier masses with Luck, using Battle Fortune and eventually Will of the Fates (both are Alterations). Even without the Astral random, you can bombard foes with Astral Geyser, Stellar Cascades, Astral Fires (if you got a Fire random instead), and Soul Slay, all without even needing Communions; Communions only make you stronger, however, as long as you use them right. With boosters, whether you top out at 5 or 6 depends on whether or not you have an 2 Mystic, thanks to the Starshine Skullcap and the Crystal Coin. With 6, you can craft the Ring of Sorcery and then the Ring of Wizardry if you have Pearls to spare, though you only have slots to boost yourself to 7. 1-in-160 Astrologers start with 5, but don't count on that; you can only barely count on getting level 2 in one of the Elements, after all, and those are 20 times more common.

Speaking of the Elements, boosters (other than the grossly-expensive Ring of Wizardry) and your 1-in-8 Level 2 Elemental Mystics enable you to reach 4, 3, & 2 outside of battle. If you're willing to splurge with your Elemental Gems (but just not for Empowering some fragile Human), you can climb to 5 & 4 with Sea King's Court & Troll King's Court respectively (Conjuration 6), the former of which will allow you to summon Water Queens and climb an extra two levels if you find a lake fast enough. If you're swimming in Gems, enough to Forge the Rings, you'll be able to climb both Fire & Earth to similar extents. In battle, Phoenix Power & Summon Earthpower (both Conjuration 3) allow you to climb Fire & Earth an extra level, while Summon Water Power lets you do the same with Water if you somehow end up under the sea. Communions could do the same thing, but higher-level Slaves last longer than lower-level ones, and the booster spells are shared between Slaves & Masters; the Earthpower spell even relieves their Fatigue directly. You can summon large amounts of Elementals, make your heavy infantry even heavier with Legions of Steel, and do other neat stuff in battle with these guys, but you won't have a ton of them.

Nature exists too, don't forget about that. All of your Priestesses have 1, and they don't have a cheap method of climbing up. In battle, 1 Mages are typically quite limited outside of relatively-weak point-buffing-and-debuffing, though a bit less so with Nature Gems and more-than-conservative Gem usage. However, the 11 crosspath allows you to Forge the Crystal Matrix, so you can stitch your Priestesses into Communions so they can cast bigger spells (and potentially wreck the Communions Slaves in the process). You also have a 13 Hero who can drum up a Faerie Court at Conjuration 8, breaking you into 4 & 3 without the Rings; you have only a 0-5% chance (depending on your Fortune/Misfortune Scales) of getting a Hero each turn, however, and there are three other Heroes that you might get instead.

Discuss the top few generic spells that most increase a nation's combat power or synergize with national strategies. These will generally be early-to-mid game spells since individual spells matter much more during those periods of the game. Some examples are Foul Vapors for MA C'tis, Horde of Skeletons + Sabbath Master/Sabbath Slave for the Niefelheim line of nations, Mother Oak for the Pangaeas, Wailing Winds access, etc. For broader advice on magic use, link to Not-Lola's Basic Magic Use Guide.

This is also a good place to point out notable magic weaknesses, such as a lack of nature access making a nation vulnerable to Foul Vapors.

Combat

As restated above your a Astral spam nation with side path in Fire, Water, & Earth from mystics. All of which becomes stronger during communion. A decent Selection to fluff up your hoplites, protecting them from especially elemental damages but also a single entity to battlefield wiping AOE attacks.

if you have a Matrix, then the priestess adds Nature to mix to furth your enemy disposal and army buffing options though at a higher fatigue cost on your Mystic communion slaves.

Mystics

Almost all your mystics have high combat usefulness and even those with low paths like 11 can spam Frozen Heart in a clinch. The most useful ones are of course the double paths 2, 2, 2, 2. A few notable combat magic crosspaths are 11 which gives access to magma spells like Magma Eruption, 12 which gives access to acid spells like Acid Rain and 12 which gives access to Astral Fires.

In battle your elemental and astral mystics can reach as high as 4, 4, 3, 4 without the use of boosters using Phoenix Power, Summon Earthpower and Power of the Spheres. Remember Power of the Spheres takes 100 fatigue at 1 so if using it one should preferably first get Light of the Northern Star up because it halves those 100 fatigue to 50. Remember all your mystics with atleast 1 can use earth gems for reinvigoration from Summon Earthpower.

Cheap boosters in Water Bracelet, Starshine Skullcap and Earth Boots bring your access to 4545. That is enough to cast Weapons of Sharpness, Army of Gold, Grip of Winter, Heat from Hell, Flaming Arrows, Will of the Fates and even Astral Tempest. This is all from 135 1 turn recruit mages that doesn't need a temple.

Example of battle spells:

Mystic communions

With a nation that has communion masters and slaves with so many random paths, setting up communions to work as intended and be efficient can be hard as someone new to communions. There are a few key rules to remember when creating communions with Mystics:

*Master casting spells that slaves do not have a path in creates huge amount of fatigue in slaves
*Least amount of fatigue in slaves is generated when slaves have higher path than the master.

This means if you want to cast some big water spells, the most efficient master is a master with only 11, this is because it can only cast water and astral spells. The best slave in this situation is any mystic with 2. This relation can be improved even further by having only one of several masters casting Power of the Spheres boosting all slaves paths by 1, while only boosting a single master by 1. If you want to cast big water and fire spells, your masters are 11 and 11 while your slaves are 111.

If you are in a situation where a master mystic risk casting a spell in a path the slaves do not have off script, it should be equipped with a ranged magic item and put on fire after its script is done. You can also put off slave path Summon Earthpower this way on a communion.

List and describe any unique national items or discounts in this section, discuss and compare with similar generic items. Also discuss generic items that are useful and accessible for the nation. These may include:

• Thug gear (if the nation has good thugs)
• Research boosters (particularly if the nation needs help researching or is already very good at researching)
• Other items that synergize with the nation (e.g. Dwarven Hammers for MA Ulm)

This is probably the most difficult section to get consensus for. Describe how strong the nation is during expansion, the early, mid and late game, and what makes it strong/weak at each of those points. This should give readers an idea of where the weaknesses of a nation lie (if they have not been shown already) and when to take advantage of a nation's strengths.

List some example expansion strategies here. If a strong bless or pretender is required then leave the specifics for the pretender section.

List some example pretender builds. Try to use the following format to keep authorship and pretender design rationale clear.

Dominions 5 Nation Guide: MA Arco by Perun (2021)

Nations
Early Ages	Arcoscephale • Ermor • Ulm • Marverni • Sauromatia • T'ien Ch'i • Machaka • Mictlan • Abysia • Caelum • C'tis • Pangaea • Agartha • Tir na n'Og • Fomoria • Vanheim • Helheim • Niefelheim • Rus • Kailasa • Lanka • Yomi • Hinnom • Ur • Berytos • Xibalba • Mekone • Ubar • Atlantis • R'lyeh • Pelagia • Oceania • Therodos
Middle Ages	Arcoscephale • Ermor • Sceleria • Pythium • Man • Eriu • Ulm • Marignon • Mictlan • T'ien Ch'i • Machaka • Agartha • Abysia • Caelum • C'tis • Pangaea • Asphodel • Vanheim • Jotunheim • Vanarus • Bandar Log • Shinuyama • Ashdod • Uruk • Nazca • Xibalba • Phlegra • Phaeacia • Ind • Na'ba • Atlantis • R'lyeh • Pelagia • Oceania • Ys
Late Ages	Arcoscephale • Pythium • Lemuria • Man • Ulm • Marignon • Mictlan • T'ien Ch'i • Jomon • Agartha • Abysia • Caelum • C'tis • Pangaea • Midgård • Utgård • Bogarus • Patala • Gath • Ragha • Xibalba • Phlegra • Vaettiheim • Atlantis • R'lyeh • Erytheia