[Spoilers] Biggus Decius and the Sucking Vampires (Bobchillingworth / Calabim)

[darrelljs]

Hmm...that really should not be .

Darrell

[Bobchillingworth]

EDIT: Okay, received a PM back from pocketbeetle; seems like a simple map-editing error. I can certainly live with it (as PB noted in his PM back to me, it's not like we can spend EP against each other), and I'll hold off on contacting him further until we have actual contact. I did move Pork in a suboptimal direction to cover for Prespur, but whaaaaatever :P

[darrelljs]

the ability for units to gain over 100 experience from fighting barbs (100 being the usual cap)

Pretty sure this was removed in a patch, however as Vampires you don't care so much. I'm not a big fan of the Raiders promotion although I recognize the Command promotion is just plain sick. I really prefer Flauros for aristofarms, but in an MP game Decius might end up being better.

Darrell

[Bobchillingworth]

So, got my first Random Event:





This is one of the "Free Golden Age" events that someone had brought up in the planning thread; as I had noted, these mostly happen in the very early game, when you lack the religion(s) necessary to exploit them. Curiously, I never did receive the prompt to change my alignment; I had wanted Evil or Good because they tend to get better random event options (including the "pay 50 gold for a free great prophet" one), but oh well.


Also when I ended turn my capital borders popped:





Wow, this really is excellent land! I'm tentatively thinking of placing my second city on the plains hill next to the Gold that Beef is standing on, and then a third being placed soon after on that plains hill directly above the corn as a future major feasting city, I'll have a better idea in a few turns.

Another point of interest: That grassland pig at my capital will almost certainly spawn an event that will either give me a free Hill Giant at the cost of removing the resource, or force me to pay some stored food and gold to make the Giant go away, or I'll have to fight it. I'm not sure which I'll go for when the time comes, depends on whether I really need the extra food to grow Prespur for feasting purposes- but I'll have to remember to keep an extra unit or two on guard after I pasture the pigs in case the I decide to keep the food and don't have the money to make the Giant go away.




There are a few major decisions which I'll need to make for my civ once the early worker & development techs are in, which will determine my tech path and building choices. There's too much to discuss in a single post, so I'll spread it out some over my updates. First thing up is:


Religion. I've identified three that I really want, any one of them would be fantastic. Curiously, all are "evil". In order of preference:

-Ashen Veil. Blight and Hell terrain really sucks for the Calabim, it's true, but without "Last Days" enabled, the AC counter takes a long time to raise. The Ring of Fire tier II cleric dudes (I forget the unit name) will be fantastic additions to my vampire armies so that I have some source of collateral that can keep up, and which doesn't involve babysitting adepts until they can become fire II mages. The Veil priests will also be total beasts once they level up enough to receive the gift of vampirism. Likewise, Rosier will be a menace after he feasts for a few turns- give him mobility II, Combat V, Heroic Defense & Attack II, and let him move 10 spaces a turn in enemy territory Most important advantages of the Veil are the temples & shrine; a great way to get the science and scientist specialists I'll lack without elder councils.

-Octopus Overlords. The temples and priests aren't as good, but the Heroes will be awe-inspiring with Vampire power-leveling, especially Hastaur. The Stygian Guard are really good units too, although it'll take a while for them to make the scene. Water Mana from the shrine is useful, frees up a node (once I find some :P ) for Death to power the specters, or Life for faster city growth.

-Council of Esus. The Shrine is awesome (My units in my borders are invisible!), although I don't need another shadow mana. Gibboen would be the other major draw, a powerful Archmage available early on... get him equipped with Fire III and Mind III and let him loose with a vampire escort




Interestingly, I think I have a decent shot at at least the Veil. Auric can't adopt it, it does nothing for Cardith, Savaltar should avoid it because Hell terrain permanently murders forests and a high AC sparks forest fires, Kandaros is much better paired with Runes of Kilmorph, I guess maybe Rhonna will do okay with the Veil, Order might be a better choice though. Actually, the Order works pretty well with the Calabim too, but with Organized I probably don't need the maintenance reduction building so much, and Order priests are pretty lame.


The big question is when I'll have the time to go for a religion... I know that I want to make a diversion to slavery a little before or soon after I unlock vampires so that I can get them produced ASAP, I might also want to consider slavery even earlier to whip libraries. And if I can swing the Veil, then the temple science will help unlock stuff like Losha and vamps much more quickly... for how long do I want to delay unlocking my best unit and Aristocracy farms... decisions decisions.


Hey Dave, got any ideas =) ?

[Bobchillingworth]

And, apropos of nothing, here is some kick-ass vampire music

[DaveV]

Hey Dave, got any ideas =) ?

Lots .

Curiously, I never did receive the prompt to change my alignment

I would guess because you weren't the first player, so the game treated you as an AI and rolled your alignment randomly. Even without the great prophet event, I would recommend running 0% science to get some cash for events. You can still get a great engineer or settler from events, either of which could be very helpful.

WRT religion: I almost always end up running Runes of Kilmorph for the economic boost, iron weapons from the Mines of Gal-Dur to save me from researching a couple expensive techs, and Bambur for enchanted blade, which works nicely on spectres and skellies. The Veil is nice for the research boost, the best priest, and good heroes. Sacrifice the Weak is supposed to be awesome for the vampires, although I've never tried it. Octopus Overlords is weakened by the map; there probably won't be any need for water walking, and I don't see any lakes in your screenshot, so no Tsunami. Esus has never appealed much to me: no temple or priests, and everyone knows you have it in an MP game.

I'd say religion is a low priority, though: I'd recommend going calendar, mining, code of laws, then probably bronze working, depending on what your surrounding terrain looks like. Agree with your second city site: gold + incense for some commerce boost!

It's odd that you've explored so much territory without finding a single unique feature. Maybe they're clumped in between civs, to give you something to fight over?

You wrote earlier about assessing your opponents. Here's my take, based solely on the civ, without knowing the players:

Hippus - very dangerous because of their world spell (+1 strength, +1 move, blitz for all units). With the financial trait, they'll be a threat for quite a while.
Illians - their best bet is a beeline to philosophy and the White Hand. This gives them what amounts to three hero units, who'll be able to summon ice elementals after a couple turns. If they can do this, they'll be very dangerous.
Svartalfar - a strong, but slow-developing, civ. More of a late game threat than early or even mid-game. Almost certain to found to Fellowship of Leaves.
Khazad - two very good leader traits (financial and aggressive). Another civ that takes some time to get rolling. As you said, almost certain to found Runes of Kilmorph (and probably score Bambur and the Mines of Gal-Dur). Best siege unit in the game makes them dangerous once they get Construction.
Kuriotates - would be a nice trading partner, since they get two happiness resources that no-one else has. I've never played this civ, so I don't know much about its strengths and weaknesses.

I'd put the Calabim in the slow-developing category. I'd advise expanding as much as you can, while building an army and keeping your research going. If you can get some happy resources, governor's mansions, aristofarms, and vampires, you'll be a force; until then, you don't have anything special going for you.

[Bobchillingworth]

Thanks for the thoughts, man! I think your assessment of the enemy (or "other") leaders is pretty accurate. I think that Cull and the Archduke are the newest to FFH, which is good since they have two of the best civs.


Personally I see Auric as the most likely ally; his cities post-Temples of the Hand won't be worth feasting on or keeping, and he gets some of the least benefit out of vampirism if whoever is playing him wants me to gift a vampire to seal a partnership.


Actually, that leads me to what is right now my best diplomatic ace-in-the-whole: if anyone threatens to wipe me out, I'll offer to gift them a single vampire if they spare me. I suspect (hope) most people will go for it; that allows them to boost at a minimum their hero(s) to god-like levels. Of course, it won't work more than once, because once one person can spread vampirism they can just pass it on to other players at will.



About RoK, one reason I'm not too interested in it is that Bambur simply moves too slow for my tastes, and the other, crossbow-packing hero just isn't very powerful compared to most of the other second religious heroes.


For the tech path, I'm provisionally thinking agr -> calendar -> Ancient Chants -> Myst (for God King) -> crafting -> mining -> BW / CoL depending on need. Might want to fit education somewhere in there as well, depending on how long things are taking to research. Moroi will be my main defensive and offensive unit for a long time, until vamps. With Burning Blood they make for pretty good units for any purpose as long as you don't mind having their deaths as either barbarians or suicide troopers be a near-certainty. I'm not going to deploy archers for a very long time, I'll want HBR for mobility but I'll probably ignore horsemen for the most part as well. Hunters... I don't see hunting as a priority, at all.


Major discussion point for this post is:

World Spell


For the uninitiated, this is a one-time use spell that every civilization possess their own unique variant of. Mine takes 2 pop from every enemy city and adds 2 to all of mine.

Honestly not a whole lot to say about my strategy here; I intend to watch the demographics and then use the spell once I can be assured that everyone has at least one size 3 city. For this reason I'll probably stop growing Prespur once it reaches size 3 or 4, so that the worldspell doesn't launch it into useless unhappiness (the cotton will add one happy to my current cap of 5).

There are other moments that I could deploy the spell... in SP I often like to use it to recover from a blight; but it's pretty weak as far as worldspells go, and I think that screwing everyone over at the start is probably the best use.




Finally, my screencap of the night:






Yuck. Ruins are bad news; they randomly spawn 4-strength 2-move barbarian lizardmen. I'll have to waste my bloodpet fortifying over it until I safely can explore it (meaning, with plenty of backup)... or can you pillage them? I guess I'll find out next turn when I move onto it, assuming it doesn't spawn anything between turns.


On the plus side, my proposed city 2 spot looks confirm-able! 1NW of the cow near the corn is looking like a pretty solid city 3 location.

[DaveV]

First off, would you mind posting a screenshot of the F8-settings page? I'm starting to suspect that huts are turned off, in which case a scout is probably the worst possible first build. Maybe the two starting bloodpets were a hint from Darrell?

For the tech path, I'm provisionally thinking agr -> calendar -> Ancient Chants -> Myst (for God King) -> crafting -> mining -> BW / CoL depending on need. Might want to fit education somewhere in there as well, depending on how long things are taking to research. Moroi will be my main defensive and offensive unit for a long time, until vamps. With Burning Blood they make for pretty good units for any purpose as long as you don't mind having their deaths as either barbarians or suicide troopers be a near-certainty. I'm not going to deploy archers for a very long time, I'll want HBR for mobility but I'll probably ignore horsemen for the most part as well. Hunters... I don't see hunting as a priority, at all.

If you're planning to go with agristocracy ASAP, why bother with God King? Every turn in revolt is magnified because of quick speed, and mysticism is not worth much for the vamps because they can't build elder councils, and I don't think you should be rushing for an early religion. I agree with your army plan, although a few hawks might be nice at some point.

About RoK, one reason I'm not too interested in it is that Bambur simply moves too slow for my tastes

He's just as fast as a vampire, and he belongs with your main stack to keep casting enchanted blade on your summons and repair on your catapults. Granted, he's not a pillaging machine like Rosier, but I like him. Anyway, the Khazad will probably get him long before you're ready to go down the religion path.

Honestly not a whole lot to say about my strategy here; I intend to watch the demographics and then use the spell once I can be assured that everyone has at least one size 3 city. For this reason I'll probably stop growing Prespur once it reaches size 3 or 4, so that the worldspell doesn't launch it into useless unhappiness (the cotton will add one happy to my current cap of 5).

Probably the best plan, but it may hurt you diplomatically. I remember one of my first FfH games, where I decided the Calabim had to die after they wiped out a bunch of people in my cities with River of Blood.

I'll have to waste my bloodpet fortifying over it until I safely can explore it (meaning, with plenty of backup)... or can you pillage them? I guess I'll find out next turn when I move onto it, assuming it doesn't spawn anything between turns.

Not a good plan. Parking your only explorer on a grassland tile will get him killed by a griffon or lizardman. Lizardmen can't pillage, and they are back to being stupidly aggressive in patch N. Your first two cities will be on hills, so a fully fortified bloodpet will have +75% on defense, and spawning lizardmen will most likely mean free experience for your defenders (for FfH newbies: building early cities on hills is a Very Good Idea). This means getting rid of the lair will have to wait until after you have a super-promoted unit or bronze weapons so you can kill its guarding lizardman, but I think it's better to keep exploring at this point.

I don't know if you know this, but if you explore a lair when you have a unit on every tile around a it, bad guys can't spawn. You get the message for a bad guy, but they don't appear.

[darrelljs]

Huts were not turned off...the only option was no tech trading. The two starting bloodpets were an artifact of re-ordering the players which I failed to correct.

Darrell

[Bobchillingworth]

Thanks for the thoughts, Dave I differ on a few points, but I appreciate any & all input anyway.


For Myst vs. Straight to Aristocracy, you do have me thinking here, but I'm still leaning toward getting God King asap. The research boost will help with the critical but fairly expensive early techs like mining, and the production boost is badly needed with my single hill capital, which will be my best-developed and main production city for at least until I can sink a dozen turns of worker improvements into city 2. Also, God King means more settlers and workers earlier, which I agree with your earlier assessment is a major goal for the Calabim. Also also, I need Ancient Chants fairly early on anyway so that I can produce a monument for City 2 in order to claim the Reagants.


Bambur moves too slow in the sense that he can't tear through almost a dozen tiles in a single turn like Rosier, which means a lot for my grand military strategy. But as you say, this will amost certainly be a moot point.


Personally, I don't care about diplo reprecussions for using my worldspell; I'm the goddamned vampires, and I fully intend to roleplay a bit, so it'll be in character if nothing else I am curious whether you think my idea for gifting a vampire to save my ass in a possible desperate situation might work.


You might be right about not fortifying on the Ruins, I'm conflicted. I don't want them chasing my workers though, and once they fortify a lizardman on the ruins it'll take a while to dislodge him.