Dominions 3: The Awakening/Nations/Agartha, Ktonian Dead

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The humans that live in Agartha have learned to tame the beasts of the underworld.

Overview[edit]

In the Late Age, the Agarthans have died off and the humans have turned towards necromancy. The humans revere the mummified corpses of the Pale Ones and the Ktonian Necromancers know how to give them false life.

National Features[edit]

Static Defenses[edit]

Provincial Defences
Defense 1+ Defense 20+
Commander Cave Captain Gate Lord
Units Agarthan Light Infantry, Agarthan Infantry Entrance Guard
Fortressess
Province Type Admin Defense Supply Cost Build Time
Capital Cave City 30 600 150 1400 6
Default Fortified City 50 250 1000 1200 5
Mountain Cave Fort 15 500 150 1200 5
Swamp Kelp Fortress 10 100 25 800 3
Forest Forest Castle 20 350 200 1000 4

Units[edit]

Agarthan Light Crossbowman[edit]

D3 - TA Unit Agarthan Light Crossbow.jpg
Gold 10 Resources 11
Hit Points 10 Strength 10
Protection 7 Attack Skill 8
Morale 10 Defence Skill 9
Magic Resistance 10 Precision 8
Encumberance 3 Move 2/12
Traits
Darkvision(50)
Armor
Ring Mail Cuirass, Leather Cap
Weapons
Short Sword, Agarthan Steel Crossbow
Description
"In the dark caverns of Agartha, missile weapons were never very useful, but with the impending conquest of the surface world, this has changed. As wood and its substitutes are rare in the caverns, iron and steel are used as much as possible. Agarthan crossbows are made of steel instead of wood. Crossbows are much preferred to bows, as they are more accurate and the Agarthans have poor eyesight."
Comments
Steel crossbows do 11 points of damage instead of the normal 10. Slow ROF but otherwise pretty decent.

Agarthan Crossbowman[edit]

D3 - TA Unit Agarthan Crossbow.jpg
Gold 10 Resources 19
Hit Points 10 Strength 10
Protection 12 Attack Skill 8
Morale 10 Defence Skill 8
Magic Resistance 10 Precision 8
Encumberance 4 Move 2/11
Traits
Darkvision(50)
Armor
Chain Mail Cuirass, Iron Cap
Weapons
Short Sword, Agarthan Steel Crossbow
Description
"In the dark caverns of Agartha, missile weapons were never very useful, but with the impending conquest of the surface world, this has changed. As wood and its substitutes are rare in the caverns, iron and steel are used as much as possible. Agarthan crossbows are made of steel instead of wood. Crossbows are much preferred to bows, as they are more accurate and the Agarthans have poor eyesight."
Comments
Steel crossbows do 11 points of damage instead of the normal 10. Slow ROF but otherwise pretty decent.

Agarthan Heavy Crossbowman[edit]

D3 - TA Unit Agarthan Heavy Crossbow.jpg
Gold 10 Resources 27
Hit Points 10 Strength 10
Protection 16 Attack Skill 8
Morale 10 Defence Skill 6
Magic Resistance 10 Precision 8
Encumberance 6 Move 2/9
Traits
Darkvision(50)
Armor
Full Chain Mail, Iron Cap
Weapons
Short Sword, Agarthan Steel Crossbow
Description
"In the dark caverns of Agartha, missile weapons were never very useful, but with the impending conquest of the surface world, this has changed. As wood and its substitutes are rare in the caverns, iron and steel are used as much as possible. Agarthan crossbows are made of steel instead of wood. Crossbows are much preferred to bows, as they are more accurate and the Agarthans have poor eyesight."
Comments
Steel crossbows do 11 points of damage instead of the normal 10. Slow ROF but otherwise pretty decent.

Agarthan Light Infantry[edit]

D3 - TA Unit Agarthan Light Infantry.jpg
Gold 10 Resources 10
Hit Points 10 Strength 10
Protection 9 Attack Skill 10
Morale 10 Defence Skill 13
Magic Resistance 10 Precision 8
Encumberance 5 Move 2/10
Traits
Darkvision(50)
Armor
Full Leather Armor, Iron Cap, Shield
Weapons
Short Sword
Description
"Light infantry equipped with light armor, shields and short swords. They have partial darkvision."
Comments
Not particularly good for mid- or late-game strategies, but a good unit for hording to take on independents early. They are useless in the face of cavalry.

Agarthan Infantry[edit]

D3 - TA Unit Agarthan Infantry.jpg
Gold 10 Resources 22
Hit Points 10 Strength 10
Protection 14 Attack Skill 10
Morale 10 Defence Skill 13
Magic Resistance 10 Precision 8
Encumberance 7 Move 1/8
Traits
Darkvision(50)
Armor
Chain Mail Hauberk, Iron Cap, Kite Shield
Weapons
Short Sword
Description
"Infantry equipped with chainmail,kite shields and short swords. They have partial darkvision."
Comments

Agarthan Heavy Infantry[edit]

D3 - TA Unit Agarthan Heavy Infantry.jpg
Gold 10 Resources 27
Hit Points 10 Strength 10
Protection 17 Attack Skill 10
Morale 10 Defence Skill 12
Magic Resistance 10 Precision 8
Encumberance 8 Move 1/7
Traits
Darkvision(50)
Armor
Full Chain Mail, Half Helmet, Kite Shield
Weapons
Short Sword
Description
"Heavy infantry equipped with heavy chainmail,kite shields and short swords. They have partial darkvision."
Comments

Agarthan Sapper[edit]

Gold 20 Resources 18
Hit Points 10 Strength 11
Protection 9 Attack Skill 10
Morale 10 Defence Skill 7
Magic Resistance 9 Precision 8
Encumberance 4 Move 2/11
Traits
Siege Bonus(7), Darkvision(50)
Armor
Full Leather Armor, Iron Cap
Weapons
Pick Axe
Description
"Sappers are specialists who dig tunnels under enemy walls in order to make them fall. The sappers of Agartha are remarkably skilled and every sapper in an army counts as seven additional besieging soldiers."
Comments

Blindfighter[edit]

Gold 30, Resource 37, sacred.
Very heavy infantry with some encumbrance problems. Pretty good chassis for an E9 bless, which also benefits your mages with extra reinvigoration. Most of the actual damage will still have to be dealt by crossbowmen and/or mages but Blindfighters make good blockers. The tactical potential of Blindfighters + Darkness is just gravy on top. Note: Blindfighters are magical and need magical leadership. This is both good and bad; good because a Ktonian Necromancer can lead a good-sized army of Blindlords and Crossbowmen/Cave Knights even with a regular leadership of 10, and bad because you basically need a Necromancer or a Blindlord to shuttle Blindfighters around. It also makes them potentially vulnerable to some high-end spells and magical items.

Commanders[edit]

Unit
Gold x, Resources y
Description

Ktonian Necromancer, Gold 200, Resource 1?, sacred An excellent, excellent battle mage. F1E2D2 (FESD random) means everything from Nether Darts to Magma Eruption to Cloud of Death. Good researcher, and cheap to maintain. Main weaknesses are a map move of 1 and poor precision.

Heroes[edit]

Starting Sites[edit]

2 death, 1 earth, 1 fire

National Spells[edit]

Don't overlook Summon Umbral (2 death gems, summons a rather tough life-draining undead, use in groups of 8-10), Summon Sepulchral (sacred giant undead with 68 hp, but don't forget to install DrPraetorious' hotfix or blessings won't work on undead), or Call Tomb Oracle (E3D3H3 mage/priest with lots of hit points).

National Summons[edit]

Unit
Gems z
Description

Strategy A[edit]

You have access to cheap sacred mages, skull mentors, and lightless lanterns, so research should be easy. Magic-1 is probably an unnecessary scale because necromancers are so cheap that you might as well recruit them instead of the lesser mages (200 gold for 8 research instead of 100 for 4), and IMHO a 12% boost to research isn't worth 40 points for Agartha. I like E9 and D9 blesses because they boost mages, although D9 might be unnecessarily high.

I see several possible paths for Agartha which are not mutually exclusive:

Focus on sacred troops like blindfighters and/or Sepulchrals. Take a heavy bless and rely on buffer spells like Strength of Giants to do damage. Research Conjuration-3 and Construction-7 for Weapons of Sharpness, Legions of Steel, and Enchantment-3 for Strength of Giants. Alteration-6 gives Darkness, which is an awesome buff for Blindfighters even if it slightly hurts battlemages. One advantage: your armies will be really light on maintenance costs for the punch they pack, much like Helheim.

Battlemages. Try to find air mages somewhere (Crystal Amazons) to cast Aim on your Necromancers. Evocation gives Magma Eruption, Shadow Blast, Nether Darts, Fireball, Falling Fires, Pillar of Fire, Cloud of Death, etc. With Phoenix Power, a Skull of Fire and a Flame Helmet you should be able to manage Flame Storm for some huge AOE damage. (If your pretender can forge Rings of Wizardry you can cast Flames From the Sky, too, which combined with a D9 blessing and a Shroud of the Battle Saint should kill or cripple about half of the largest enemy army.) Friendly fire could potentially be a problem for your blockers/chaff, so you may stick to non-fire spells like Magma Eruption (where your armor can protect you) or take a light Astral bless for extra MR (vs. Cloud of Death, Nether Darts, etc.) or just replenish your chaff frequently. E9 blessing would be nice but is not essential.

Conventional troops. Maybe take an E9 blessing, but buy just enough Cave Knights and/or Blindfighters for the front lines of your armies while crossbowmen shower death. Blindfighters are slow enough that enemies will be intercepted closer to your lines than not, which is both bad (because enemies may kill your crossbowmen/mages) and good (Agarthan precision problems matter less). Cave Knights may seem expensive, but if the Cave Knight dies you have a Cave Drake--58 HP unit with 22 Prot that costs zero upkeep. (Low MR though.) You may want to take Production scales.

Undead summons. Plan on shifting over to Umbrals, Sepulchrals, Tomb Oracles, Iron Ancestors, Wraith Lords, Tartarians, etc. in the late game. They are pretty tough, and this lets you take heavy Death scales for extra points (because gem income is not population-dependent). If you need extra gold for battlemages you can convert gems with alchemy or hunt for Earth sites (Gold Mine, etc.). Combine with Cold scales to enhance the effectiveness of undead Chill. Agarthan Sepulchrals will never be as frightening as Niefel Jarls, but with Agarthan battlemage backup they don't have to be. You'll want N4 on your pretender for the regeneration and the ability to Gift-of-Reason your Tartarians.

N4 also lets you break into A3 with a Faerie Queen, who can forge Boots of Flying, etc., to help alleviate your problems with mapmove.

Necromancers with an Astral pick can also teleport, given a Crystal Coin and a Starshine Skullcap.

Scale Design[edit]

Pretender Design[edit]

Expansion[edit]

Research Order[edit]