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--- owl-guide-ma-agartha [2022/10/23 15:26]
joste
+++ owl-guide-ma-agartha [2022/11/16 13:50] (current)
cactusowl [Pretender Design]
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   * Diverse threat vectors that all demand specialized responses make their forces hard to prepare for
   * Efficient and diverse national troop summons let you turn gems into midgame power very well
-  * Strong ability to win pitched battles
+  * Strong ability to win large battles
   * Exceptional siege ability
 ==== National weaknesses: ====
-  *  Poor default access to mobility tools (fast movement, stealth, magic-phase attacks)
+  * Poor default access to mobility tools (fast movement, stealth, magic-phase attacks)
+  * Summons compete with generic uses for gems
   * Extremely limited magic diversity (national E4 D2 W2 F1) means you will need to find critical path access from indies/god
   * Weak-ish research compared to other human nations
@@ Line 43: / Line 44: @@
 as force multipliers, compensate for their low mobility with tools that let them endure and kill,
 and win wars through efficiency, adaptability, and raw power.
@@ Line 144: / Line 146: @@
   * are your best troop leaders (80 leadership, inspirational +1)
   * are Holy 3, giving you easy access to Divine Blessing and throne claiming
-  * are beefy enough (40 hp, prot 6) to not die from stray arrow fire, so they can be positioned aggressively
+  * are beefy enough (40 hp, prot 6) to not die from stray arrow fire, so they can be positioned aggressively, and do not die to remotes easily later in the game
   * are mapmove 16, your fastest commander, capable of leading your statues and umbrals around quickly
   * are amphibious, and so will provide a critical part of your mage support underwater
@@ Line 263: / Line 265: @@
 you have to go kill them, and then wind up with thug gear you don't have a use for. You could sell it, or you could make a Marble Oracle to
 put it on. In the game that inspired this guide, I've fought Ys and Vanheim frequently, and have a golf bag of gear they made and delivered to
-me on their thugs.
+me on their thugs that I murdered.
 These things can be used as heavy army support thugs. Maybe you really need someone to carry a Greatsword of Sharpness or a Holy Scourge or even a Gate Cleaver that won't die easily and will hit like a truck. Maybe you are entering or creating a toxic battlefield (Rigor Mortis, Wailing Winds) and need to make sure
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 Note that allied mages are allergic to buffing them if other targets are around, even though they take buffs incredibly well.
+===== Pretender Design =====
+While Dominions 5 is notorious for stat-resist rainbows, MA Agartha loves omniresist blesses on wide rainbow pretenders even more than most. There are two reasons:
+  - Your chosen method of fighting is to put your slow sacred infantry into blocks, paint them with buffs, and grind forward hacking your opponents into bits. On the way in you will be battered by everything your opponents' mages can throw at you. You don't have the speed to close with the enemy before their mages get their spells off; you have to endure them.
+  - You have limited magic diversity and really appreciate a pretender with wide magic to break you into paths.
+What you *don't* need is things like Hard Skin or Fire Shield or Auras. It may be tempting to either double down on your statues' resilience against melee attack or to give them alternate ways to grind down opponents. Giving them heat aura or fire shield is redundant given that Magma Children will kill anything not highly fire resistant already. Making them tank blows even harder doesn't matter if they all die to ??Wrathful Skies?? or fatigue out from ??Heat from Hell??.
+If you are going to take a rainbow, taking it imprisoned makes a lot of sense:
+  * You will mostly be taking non-incarnate blesses
+  * You don't have a combat chassis, nor do you really need one
+  * Diversity paths are not as useful until year 3 anyway when you get access to things to do with them
+==== Blesses ====
+So, what do you need from a bless? Everything needs resistance against magic and your Shard Guard and Sentinels like just a little help killing things.
+  * **Fire**: FR and +attack are obvious. You need to hit things and Attack 11 could use some improvement. Good attack also gives you more repels, since you have long weapons. The extra FR makes your stuff not get set on fire by Magma Children, not die to Heat from Hell, and helps deal with fire elementals and fire evocations.
+  * **Air**: Shock resistance, swiftness, and precision all have merits. Swiftness lets your slow infantry close faster, and precision lets your mages land long-range ??Maws of the Earth?? which can be decisive. However, shock resistance is absolutely critical -- otherwise you will get battered by ??Wrathful Skies?? and ??Thunder Strike??. Major shock resistance is significantly better than minor -- it lets you shrug off Wrathful much better and takes a lot of the edge off of direct hits from lightning evocations.
+  * **Water**: Cold resistance seems unnecessary since your Shard Guard already resist cold. But CR5 will let your statues and mages not die to Grip of Winter, and will stop random things with cold auras from fatiguing out your statues. The other interesting blesses are +defense and swamp survival. Swamp survival seems odd -- but it lets you cast Quagmire and ignore the penalties, which is a substantial boost to your relative effectiveness. Defense is less effective than on sacred cavalry nations -- your primary defenses are protection and hp -- but your Shard Guard and Sentinels can still dodge attacks especially when quickened.
+  * **Earth**: You have +1 national earth bless point; what to spend it on? The contenders for earth blesses are strength, reinvigoration, mountain survival, and the Fire/Shock Resistance major bless. Strength is quite helpful on Shard Guard and Sentinels. More strength is overkill -- if you are hitting poorly armored humans. But you can deal with those regardless of your bless; there are many other things to fight that benefit from an extremely hard whack. Notably +strength functions a little like +attack; when you hit hard enough to slice through shields, it's easier to hit shielded targets. It also lets your Sentinels sometimes pop ??Mistform?? without magic weapons. Another contender is the incarnate Fire/Shock Resist bless. This can save you design points in Fire and Air, freeing you up to take +Attack and Swiftness. But it's a steep cost: you either won't have your fire/shock resist until year 3, or will have to take a dormant god. Reconstruction is a trap.
+  * **Astral**: The main contenders are MR and Magic Weapons. MR is useful for the obvious reasons. Magic Weapons seems silly since Shard Guard have magic glaives. However, Magic Weapons comes into its own in the lategame, when all your enemies will have ??Fog Warriors?? and you'll be proportionally relying more on Shard Guard. Another possibility is Far Caster, allowing you to drop ??Maws of the Earth?? and ??Frozen Heart?? on enemy formations on turn 1.
+  * **Death**: At least one rank of Undead Leadership will let all your mages lead umbrals and is a no-brainer. Beyond that, take Undying.
+  * **Nature**: Your Shard Guard and Sentinels already have poison resistance, but your mages would really appreciate it. Foul Vapors is oppressive. PR10 is not overkill. Beyond that, +hp and Swamp Survival (for Quagmire) are nice.
+  * **Blood**: The obvious contenders are +Strength and Blood Surge. I feel Blood Surge is a bit of a trap. Yes, once you kill something, it's better than +Strength, but you have to get that first kill. Strength lets you do that -- slicing through shields matters a lot. Surge is great for expanding, but you don't need help expanding.
+You can take as much or as little of a bless as you like. With little bless, you'll be relying more on nonsacred summons and national troops (which you'll have more of); with more bless, your shard guard and sentinels will be doing more of the work.
+In my tournament game, I went for a fairly heavy bless:
+  * F5: +2 attack, fire resistance 5
+  * A3: Shock resistance 10
+  * W4: +2 defense, cold resistance 5
+  * E3: +2 strength, mountain survival
+  * S3: +3 magic resistance
+  * D3: 20 undead leadership, undying 4
+  * N3: 10 poison resistance, +1 hp
+  * B3: +2 strength
+==== Scales and Dominion ====
+  * Order/Turmoil: Your stuff doesn't cost that many recruitment points, except for your national pale ones. You won't be recruiting that many of them; they're useful but not your primary front line. Shard Guard are surprisingly cheap on recpoints. Turmoil is a good dump scale.
+  * Productivity/Sloth: Your stuff is fairly heavily armored, so you can make use of high productivity, especially if you want to lean on your national troops fairly heavily. You want to make sure you have enough productivity to max out Shard Guard production with whatever dominion strength you take (plus one, since you'll get five temples).
+  * Heat/Cold: Heat 3 is nearly mandatory. Magma Children love it, and your pale ones are cold blooded.
+  * Growth/Death: Growth lets you scale, but your appetite for gold declines somewhat as the game progresses, so there could be an argument for taking Death, or at least not maxing out Growth (hoping for a throne).
+  * Luck/Misfortune: The greatest advantage of Luck is the free gems. Agartha *loves* free gems. Fire/earth/death/water turn into your powerful summons. But the others are even better: luck means that you'll have a stockpile of non-national gems by the time your imprisoned god wakes up even without searching, letting you summon mages to break into those paths.
+  * Magic/Drain: Magic pairs well with Luck (free gems!). Magic 2 gives everything -1 MR in your candles, which can matter a lot for olm mindblasts. The extra research is nice. Alternatively, you could take Drain and research with Golem Crafters.
+Agartha actually likes a fairly high dominion strength. This isn't just for the golem hp bonus; since shard guard are so cheap in recpoints, you can get quite a few of them out of your cap.
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