FA and agents, following the 1650 discussion

mepbmlist
#1

I haven't found agents to be more of a pain in FA --
at least LAS scenarios -- than anywhere else.

They're still too strong in any scenario (like
everyone else, I have suggestions: even better guards.
bigger costs for failure. guards who can name a
suspected assassin for a bonus in defense), but no
worse in FA.

There are effective defenses to agents in the 1650

and 2950 scenarios.
The
most effective defense is the Curse Squad. This is a
pack of 3 mages,
each
knowing the spell "curse".

That's not been my experience.

Curse squads are slow to form. You really need four
mages in a squad -- the failure rate is so high that
you'll miss too often with 3 -- and it takes a long
time to train mages to the needed strength.

Once you have, you need a curse arty -- only the WK
starts with one -- and even then, it takes a minimum
of 12 turns (3 spells, 4 chrs) to get them all, or you
need to hunt -- and keep! -- another arty.

Finally, since even an 85 mage gets curses at around
50%, you need several mage arties, preferrably two for
each mage, a company commander, a scout... in the 75
or so orders it takes to make a curse squad, how many
bodies can an agent count?

I have a squad running and love it, but ah! is it
slow.

Ironically, in my current 1650 positions, agents rule,
and in FA, it's Weakness mages.

Takes 5 of 'em, but with the right SNA's, they can pop
out replacements easily -- two turns, rather than the
15+ needed for a curse replacement, with no arties --
and they kill just as dead.

Dan

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#2

--- In mepbmlist@y..., D Newman <nanooknw@y...> wrote:

I haven't found agents to be more of a pain in FA --
at least LAS scenarios -- than anywhere else.

They're still too strong in any scenario (like
everyone else, I have suggestions: even better guards.
bigger costs for failure. guards who can name a
suspected assassin for a bonus in defense), but no
worse in FA.

>There are effective defenses to agents in the 1650
and 2950 scenarios.
The
most effective defense is the Curse Squad. This is a
pack of 3 mages,
each
knowing the spell "curse".

That's not been my experience.

Curse squads are slow to form. You really need four
mages in a squad -- the failure rate is so high that
you'll miss too often with 3 -- and it takes a long
time to train mages to the needed strength.

Once you have, you need a curse arty -- only the WK
starts with one -- and even then, it takes a minimum
of 12 turns (3 spells, 4 chrs) to get them all, or you
need to hunt -- and keep! -- another arty.

Finally, since even an 85 mage gets curses at around
50%, you need several mage arties, preferrably two for
each mage, a company commander, a scout... in the 75
or so orders it takes to make a curse squad, how many
bodies can an agent count?

The most effective defence against enemy agents is knowing
who they are and where they are. This allows you to rebuild
nations that have been attacked and allows you to employ
defences (emmys, challenges, mages, your own agents).

The other scenarios (1650/2950) start out with very weak
agents - there is a good reason why no character starts in
either game with an agent rank above 40. You know who the
best agents are. For them to be effective in the early game
they usually are enhanced with artifacts - which can be tracked
by the numerous starting mages on either side.

In 4th age there are fewer mages, and they tend to be dedicated to
weakness duty rather than lore spells. You also don't know who the
enemy killers are (or even which nations have them!) and the enemy
agents start out far stronger. The open setup also allows teams
to place the cloud lord wannabes in spots where they are very difficult
to reach. No wonder agents rule in standard 4th age...

Marc