Dominions 3: The Awakening/Nations/Arcoscephale, The Old Kingdom

Note: The following is an abridged compilation of GameExtremist's post for MA Arco and other responses in the forum Strategy Index

Overview
The Old Kingdom is Arcoscephale in the Middle Age. Although its glory days are long past, the ancient Astrologers who aided past kings in building Arcosephal into a mighty empire have recently emerged from their centuries-old seclusion, to restore the old kingdom to world domination once more. Preistesses 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 Arcosephal has not changed much 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 used.

The cap-only Oerliads and Philosophers of EA Arco have been replaced by Astrologers. Arcos heavy foot soldiers are spear-wielding Hoplites and Heart Companions.

Units
MUAHAHA! ELEPHANTS! THE SECRET REVEALED!!! Tough (64), big (6) and quick (3/18)...and they trample!!!

Well the other units are okay....they really are just fodder compared to the ELELPHANTS PHWAHAHER! ahem...anyway use them where needed to fill out your armies etc but they ain't that special. I've never used the chariots, I figure why bother with a size 4 trampler when I can have more ELEPHANTSS!!!!
 * Unit: Gold x, Resources y
 * Description

Leaders
I only bother with Strategos...120 Leadership and a morale boosting standard..good command unit...I don't normally kit them out, rather save the gems for mid-late game summons/globals etc.
 * Unit: Gold x, Resources y
 * Description

Casters
Priestess....Great unit... these are your only priest types, so don't forget to build the odd temple here and there. Nice to have following your armies around for their heal ability... can be empowered to cast high end nature spells too.

Astrologers Powerful capital only astral mages.

Mystics Recruitable from any city, they also give more magical diversity if needed. I tend to use them where needed...I like Astrologers better.

National Summons

 * Unit: Gems z
 * Description

Early Breakout/Trampler Strategy
I love bless strategies as much as the next Vanheim fanboy, but I'd rather paint my scrotum with napalm then use a bless strategy with MA Arco...EA Arco yes....but not MA.

Heart Companions are a good unit...good but not great. Nice Morale (14) Long spear reach (5) and great protection (17) but their movement? (1/7) urgh! Sure you could for a W9 bless..but why bother. Maybe if they were like Mictlans jaguar warriors where they could be mass produced in every city it might be worth having a huge phalanx of these incredibly slow but heavily armored guys until then....no.

Scale Design
Your going to need cash and resources.....so....how about: Order +3 (plenty of gold, negates misfortune scale a little) Prod +1 (extra resources and supply help with you ele*cough* legions) Heat 0 Growth 0 Misfortune -3 (the odd curse and barbarian invasion, annoying but manageable) Magic +1 (gives your Astrologers a bit more of a research lead....they'll need it Mid - Late game).

Yeah the scales can be messed around with a bit..depends on choice of pretender I guess....mainly I like good income and resources with a little extra magic mojo.

Pretender Design
Right now I'm favoring two distinct types of pretender -

Dragons or even a Wyrm (with Dominion 9 or 10) simply because they allow for quick expansion in the early game, your neighbors who don't have early game SC pretenders tend to be quick to offer/accept NAP's but more importantly that quick expansion allows you to develop a strong economy for Arco's greatest unit...but we'll come to that soon. Your Dragon/Wyrm will probably gain quite a few afflictions the more fights they get into ...try to keep them away from Heavy Cavalry...pick and choose your indy fights, anything to tough bypass and hit with your ele*cough...mumble* legions later on. Note: the non-awe White Bull pretender suggested for EA Arco works for early expansion as well, and it has Recuperation'' for auto-healing afflictions. Also, while an awake SC with no magic paths and Awe is viable, a bit of magic for self-buffing is helpful, such as A2 for Air Shield and Mistform.

The Rainbow guy, yeah grab a sage or other low cost pretender....this guy does one thing...follow your early armies around and site search, try to give him at least one path preferably two paths in all magic discliplines except blood. Gives you those magical gems you'll need in the mid-late game, which you'll be in desperate need of if you want to remain competitive when Summoned SC's start appearing.

Expansion
As soon as possible start producing elephants. Yes there is nothing quite like the sight of 50+ elephants trampling an enemy army into dust. Early game 2 15+ mobs of elephants roaming around will fix most indies.....if your neighbor gets cheeky just crush him under the weight of your elephants. Cost - 100 Gold 20 resources mean that you won't be pumping much more then 5 - 10 at the very most in your early game...don't worry though, as mentioned above they are pretty hardy and you don't need hundreds of them to get the job done (though it would be nice to have a few hundred )

Morale...yeah elephant morale could be better...and if they break there is the added factor that they will turn tail and trample any units behind them....so leave the path of retreat clear in the event the trunked ones flee.

Improving Morale - Strategos have banners for a reason...yes stick a Strategos or three in the middle of your elephant wedge...it boosts their morale incredibly and very rarely will they flee unless you come up against something really worthy. But the morale and low MR is an inherent weakness, though not everyone seems to take advantage of this for whatever reason e.g. nation choice, circumstance, experience etc.

Magic Support
Nice to have some Priestesses following your elephant legions around... as the trunked-ones tend to accumulate afflictions via combat but also starvation tends to rear its ugly head often too.

You really want to research Soul Slay and Mind Burn early...then mind hunt with your Astrologers ASAP. Probably 1/3 to 1/2 of astrologers will be A4 right off the bat meaning you can be doing a lot of mind hunting in the right circumstances (ie. enemy doesn't also have astral mages). Keep 2 or 3 Priestesses handy to heal the feebleminded ones ASAP..its remarkable how quickly they do it too if they are scripted to heal every turn. ''Example....say you know you are about to face a large enemy army that has a fair number of death mages....hopefully you can scry the army before it gets to you... anyway if the enemy army is free of astral mages you can pretty ,much go to town on them with your A4 mindhunting astrologers. Try and take them down before they hurtesses your precious elephantses.''

I like to slowly upgrade one or even better two Astrologers up to A8 or A9 so that spells like Arcane Nexus and Wish are able to be cast....mmmm....Wish = SC of your choice. I like Seraphs with nice gear....others like Doom horrors (can backfire though....not nice)

Another tactic that works is while your elephant legions are off conquering....or whatever and need some magical backup, teleport as many of these guys as you can spare...20 is nice....sit them at the edge of the battlefield and script them to soul slay. It whittles down the enemy nicely.

In a big fight, casting Doom ( curse the entire enemy army) followed by Will of the fates (Luck for your whole army)...nice when you have a giant elephant legion with luck.

Baalz said: I find Mystics to be quite underrated. They're recruitable anywhere and communions of them can rain down falling frost/fire, gifts from heaven, magma eruption, blade wind, astral fires, enslave mind, and cleansing water depending on what the situation merits plus most any buff (legions of steel/strength of giants/weapons of sharpness turn their quite respectable heavy infantry into a major threat). You can also use them to forge slave matrixes for thugs, then buff them with every earth/fire/water/astral buff through a communion (invulnerability, fire shield & breath of winter turns most anybody into a thug, toss in quicken self, personal luck, and ). They make an awesome defensive force while you're building up your research base and a damn effective offensive force when you collect critical mass.

Silhouette said: I think Arco priestesses are under-used in communions. Make a handfull of crystal and slave matrices and setup the communion as normal, and use slave mx on some more cheap priestesses to enlarge the communion. Instant flexibility -- you can switch them to masters with the crystal mx instead and turn the communion upside down so it can lead with multiple H5+ casters for a surprise Banish/Smite/Maggots party vs undead. Even one H4+ master in communion for Fanaticism and Divine bless can be worth including full time in the team, plus the nature path buffs for slaves such as Eagle Eyes, Elemental Fortitude, Personal Regen, etc. At higher research levels, simple priestess masters have pretty big guns like Charm, Relief, Mass Regen/Protection, Howl.